Closing down business

Very messy situation, I'd appreciate any help & I'll try to be as brief as possible.
Set up a Ltd Co. last summer and have finally admitted to myself that its just not viable.

I leased a business for 5 years but am not being held to it. They have a large deposit & am not sure whether I'm getting it back. I have not paid any VAT since before Christmas. I want to settle with my creditors before the revenue move in. Do I need to appoint a liquidator or will my accountant do?

What should be my next step. My priority is settling with small businesses.

You need to be careful here, from what your are saying you know you are insolvent. If this is the case you must cease trading as it is illegal to trade in this state. You must not place the interests of one creditor above another at this point. You seem to be wanting to pay off the ACME companies and Joe Bloggs you have been doing business with and then shut up before the Revenue cops on. Don't do it, Revenue is a preferential Creditor, unless you are a UK football team of course.
Suggest you go to your accountant and tell them the situation and proceed from there. You will probably have to personally guarantee the accountant fees from now on about this advice but as far as the company debts are concerned they will be divided out as per the law from now and not how you decide. If you want to do it correctly that is.

Are we talking thousands here? If I do pay off my creditors will the revenue chase me forever & how can they take what I haven't got. I simply don't have it.
Mortgage hasn't been paid in months, I never got a salary & all I want to do is to be able to walk down the street and be able to look people in the eye.

will the revenue chase me forever & how can they take what I haven't got.

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Effectively yes. Revenue are preferential creditors in any insolvency. If you are paying off other debts, in preference to revenue, you can be deemed personally liable for the outstanding VAT etc plus interest. You now urgently need professional advice on what should be done. I would recommend obtaining this from a good accountant.

44brendan said:

Effectively yes. Revenue are preferential creditors in any insolvency. If you are paying off other debts, in preference to revenue, you can be deemed personally liable for the outstanding VAT etc plus interest. You now urgently need professional advice on what should be done. I would recommend obtaining this from a good accountant.

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Is fraudulent preference not a prosecutable offence?

No. (AFAIK)

I just thought I could pay my trading creditors & then pay the revenue & landlord if he gives me my deposit back. Everybody paid walk away.
I'm going to skip the country.

Peabody said:

I just thought I could pay my trading creditors & then pay the revenue & landlord if he gives me my deposit back. Everybody paid walk away.
I'm going to skip the country.

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And that will allow you to walk down the street and look people in the eye? I understand you are in distress but step back for a minute, you have a limited liability company, exactly what that is is limited liability for you if it goes belly up. People fail all the time and even more so now. An orderly winding up if the company has assets will give something to others. If what you are saying is that with the assets you could pay your day to day trading partners and IF you get a deposit back you could pay everyone including Revenue, this means that you could manage it just not quite in the way you imagined.
Get a bit of advice and it is not so difficult as you might imagine. For the creditors you have to look in the eye. Go and talk to them and tell them the cold hard facts and say you will do your best - stuff happens and no one likes it but that's life in business.
You are doing the right thing in winding up, don't mess it up by walking away. Even in a winding up you can learn valuable lessons that can help you if you do go into business again, like the signs to watch for in other businesses.
Hope it goes well my friend.

Thank you Woodie you have reduced the panic a bit. I live in a small town everybody knowing everyones business you know yourself. Ill do it, I have to.

Peabody said:

Thank you Woodie you have reduced the panic a bit. I live in a small town everybody knowing everyones business you know yourself. Ill do it, I have to.

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Well done. Sometimes the thoughts of doing something are worse than doing it. I know it won't be always easy but then you may find some people will surprise you too. Small town and small thoughts I wish we could get out of that mentality. Every risk taker has failed at some point. For goodness sake a couple of years ago Apple was on its knees. What's that Edison said, something like "I never failed at anything, just found a 1000 was not to do it."