A winding-up order for thousands of pounds of back taxes has been issued to Britain’s longest running women’s magazine.
The Lady, has been given the order by the HMRC for £360,000 of debt.
A High Court hearing has been set for April and Ben Budworth, publisher and chief executive, has already set up a ‘payment plan’ to return the money.
The debt mostly originates from not paying national insurance and income tax since the pandemic, The Telegraph reported.
However, Mr Budworth claims he did not receive the petition sent by HMRC.
The first issue of The Lady published in February 1885
The Lady, has been given the order by the HMRC for £360,000 of back taxes. Pictured: The January 2024 issue
A High Court hearing has been set for April and Ben Budworth, publisher and chief executive, has already set up a ‘payment plan’ to return the money. Pictured: August 2023 issue
He told The Telegraph: ‘We’ve been adhering scrupulously to the payment plan that we’ve been given and have no qualms whatsoever that we’re playing the game as instructed.
‘The winding-up petition is more to wind us up than to wind up the company. It’s probably fair to say that HMRC’s paperwork after Covid is more widely distributed than The Lady magazine.’
Known for being Britain’s longest running women’s magazine, The Lady was first published in 1885 and is known for its ads for butlers and maids.
Since the beginning, it has been owned by the distinguished Bowles family and in 2008, Mr Budworth became publisher.
He recently appointed his wife, Helen Budworth, as acting editor in 2022.
A HMRC spokesman told The Telegraph: ‘We take a supportive approach to dealing with customers who have tax debts and only file winding-up petitions once we’ve exhausted all other options, in order to protect taxpayers’ money.’
MailOnline has contacted The Lady magazine for a comment.
We must not lose this endearing relic from the age of Downton Abbey, writes The Lady’s former editor SAM TAYLOR
The Lady magazine may be about to draw her last elegant breath after HMRC reportedly issued a winding-up petition against Britain’s longest-running magazine over back taxes worth £360,000.
In response to the story, The Lady’s publisher and chief executive Ben Budworth has come out fighting.
But in view of the threat reported in the Sunday Telegraph City pages, the question is: why should we still give a fig about a publication that launched when Queen Victoria was on the throne?
After all, in a world of gender-neutral loos, some would argue her very title is an affront to all things woke — a reason to dump her, and her pearls, in the skip of history.
In response to the story, The Lady’s publisher and chief executive Ben Budworth has come out fighting. Pictured: The cover of February 1955 issue
When I first walked through its gold-edged doors on London’s Bedford Street in 2012, it was like stepping on to the set of a period drama, writes The Lady’s former editor Sam Taylor (pictured)
But they would be wrong. Like hot buttered crumpets after a cold afternoon walk or handwritten thank-you notes, some things never go out fashion.
When I first walked through its gold-edged doors on London’s Bedford Street in 2012, it was like stepping on to the set of a period drama. Immortalised by P. G. Wodehouse as his Aunt Dahlia’s magazine, Milady’s Boudoir, and loosely drawn as the magazine Lady Edith inherits in Downton Abbey, there were computers, but not as you know them, dear reader.
I arrived just as the tradition of delivering fresh hand towels each morning to the staff had been stopped and radically replaced by a hand-dryer in the lavatories — a switch that still provoked consternation many years later.
There were no direct phone lines; instead, we had an octogenarian telephonist who was adorable but prone to falling asleep after lunch, which meant it was hit and miss for anyone trying to reach us.
In many ways the structure had changed little since the magazine was set up in 1885 by Thomas Gibson Bowles, who had already founded Vanity Fair.
For a few years from 1905 it was run by his son-in-law, David Mitford, the future 2nd Baron Redesdale and father of the Mitford sisters, but he preferred to leave the running of the magazine to the ‘ladies’ and spent his time in the basement with his pet mongoose attempting to kill rodents.
His daughter, Nancy, did go on to become one of its star contributors, honing her writing skills in the editorial rooms on the first floor.
Every day in those same rooms we stopped to listen to The Archers on the radio at 2pm, and every afternoon at 3.30pm we would take tea — with the best china reserved for invited guests.
There was no money for taking people out to lunch — we were what is known in Lady circles as ‘Posh, But Poor’. But I soon realised that an invite to tea at The Lady was seen as something quite special. Who could resist sitting in the editor’s parlour knowing it had once played host to such luminaries as Lewis Carroll and Stella Gibbons — who wrote Cold Comfort Farm here while pretending to work as the editor’s assistant?
In my seven years there, I had reality TV star Georgia Toffolo as my editorial assistant — along with the Made In Chelsea film crew. As she worked only while the camera rolled, she wasn’t very productive, but she was game.
She was dumbfounded by me trying to explain to her that guests for tea were either given home-made coffee cake (meaning they were very important) or shop-bought biscuits (less important).
The decision was always in the hands of our PA, and her judgment was final. Which wasn’t always the best outcome. On one occasion, as the tray arrived, an otherwise mild-mannered gent howled: ‘I’m not biscuits!’
And the personal ads are glorious, full of aged gents looking for love and a lady who can drive — preferably with her own car. Or women in search of solvent mates — ideally with their own teeth. Pictured: The front cover of the December 2021 issue
Ultimately, though, the thing the magazine is most famous for is its classified adverts, where you can find yourself a butler, a housekeeper or a nanny.
The latest issue has a position vacant for a live-in butler to keep the ‘Butler Room, Gun Rooms and Pantry in a tidy condition’.
And the personal ads are glorious, full of aged gents looking for love and a lady who can drive — preferably with her own car. Or women in search of solvent mates — ideally with their own teeth.
I always knew readers bought the magazine as much for the adverts as the features we produced. And why not? All life is there, as they say.
The reason it has existed so long, through two world wars, is because it remains untouched by the trends of the modern world.
Last night Ben Budworth insisted he has stuck to the agreed HMRC repayment plan ‘to the penny’, adding: ‘We have not received anything nor been warned of any impending action. If such a petition exists, I am confident it will be resolved sooner rather than later.’
A High Court hearing has reportedly been set for April.
