Kate Garraway gets £716,000 tax bill while caring for husband

Kate Garraway is hit with huge £716,000 tax bill: Friend tells of GMB presenter’s anguish over new financial blow while caring for Covid-stricken husband Derek

• Kate Garraway is a carer to husband Derek after he was stricken with Covid
• The hefty bill is in relation to his psychotherapy firm, which is being liquidated 

Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway is reportedly facing a huge £716,000 tax bill after she was forced to close down her husband’s business following him becoming stricken with Covid-19 in 2020.

The final total will be settled within the coming weeks, with friends insisting she will pay whatever is owed once the bill is decided, but it brings further anguish to the presenter after an extremely difficult few years. 

Ms Garraway cares for her husband Derek, who now relies on a wheelchair, after he suffered one of the worst-known reactions to the virus after contracting it in March 2020.

She previously revealed it had left him with issues in his digestive system, his liver, his heart, his brain and his nervous system.

The couple now face deepening financial worries as they wait to hear how much they owe the taxman in the wake of the firm’s bankruptcy. 

Kate Garraway is now a full-time carer to husband Derek, whose health was decimated by Covid in 2020

The tax bill is related to Derek’s psychotherapy company, which went into liquidation last year

Derek, 55, is a trained psychotherapist and set up his own firm Astra Aspera Ltd in December 2011.

In March last year the company was forced into liquidation with HMRC estimating the tax owed to total £124,000. This was made up of VAT and PAYE/NIC due to a total of almost £54,000 and Corporation tax due to a total of just over £70,000.

But the latest documentation published by HMRC shows they have now issued a claim to liquidators to the sum of £716,822.74. Liquidators are currently considering the claim. 

A friend of Kate told the Sun: ‘The figures are terrifying and Kate is of course worried about all the financial pressures, but she has to trust the process.

‘When it comes to an end, she is determined to pay back anything that’s owed.

‘It’s no secret that Kate has been battling to keep her husband alive and working through some heartbreaking situations in her personal life in recent years.

‘Sadly as well as the emotional stress of Derek’s terrible illnesses the financial burden has also been crippling.’

A friend of Kate told the Sun: ‘The figures are terrifying and Kate is of course worried about all the financial pressures, but she has to trust the process’

Garraway pictured with Derek, their daughter Darcey and son Billy in 2018

Psychotherapist Derek (pictured) spent more than a year in intensive care – with doctors claiming he was the most seriously-sick patient to have survived the virus 

In 2021, Ms Garraway said: ‘Covid has devastated him. His digestive system, his liver, his heart, his nervous system. We’re pretty sure the inflammation did pass through his brain. He is in a terrible state. But, look, he’s alive.’ 

Derek, who is the UK’s longest-suffering patient of Covid after being admitted to hospital with the virus in March 2020, returned home from hospital in April 2021 where he received round-the-clock care. 

But he was readmitted to hospital in 2022 and still requires complex healthcare. 

She previously revealed how coronavirus triggered a rare inflammation of the brain which doctors had never seen before. 

Doctors were concerned about parts of Derek’s brain scans which looked like ‘fluffy white clouds floating in the top part of his head’, she wrote.

The areas signified inflammation on the brain and were seen as early as April, when Derek was first put on ECMO – a machine which oxygenates the blood.

Because the brain takes a long time to recover, doctors warned Kate: ‘We can’t rule out some kind of recovery, but we can’t rule out him never recovering.’ 

He is still largely bed-bound and doctors have said he is the most seriously ill patient to have survived the virus. 

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