When the payments company Wise floated on the London Stock Exchange last summer it propelled its founders into the ranks of Britain’s richest people. But Kristo Käärmann, one of the Estonian pair who launched the firm, soon found himself on an altogether less desirable list: named and shamed as a tax defaulter by HM Revenue and Customs.
Käärmann was identified as having failed to pay £720,000 in tax, joining a series of restaurants, builders and even a strip club who had all fallen foul of the tax authority. HMRC describes the defaults as “deliberate”, but Wise insists it was a matter of keeping his “personal admin in order”.
