Kevin Maxwell owes taxman $1.9m

Telemonde, Kevin Maxwell's troubled telecoms group, which last week admitted it does not have the $4m (£2.8m) it needs to cover a debt repayment due this month, also owes $1.9m to the Inland Revenue.

Mr Maxwell's company was forced to admit that "there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern" in a filing with the US Securities & Exchanges Commission on Wednesday.

Its immediate financial troubles, revealed in The Independent on Sunday two weeks ago, relate to $10m it owes to US telecoms giant, Global Crossing. Of this, $4m is due to be paid on 30 November and Telemonde admitted that: "We do not have the resources to meet the $4m payment."

The company is in talks with Global Crossing about coming to a deal on the payment that will allow Telemonde to survive. But documents available in the US show that this is far from the end of its worries.

Also pressing is $1.9m owed to the Inland Revenue for back taxes. The Revenue would not discuss the case but is known to take a dim view of unpaid back taxes.

Other creditors include WorldCom, the US phone group, which is owed $17.8m, Communications Collateral, owed $3.2m, Gemini, owed $1.3m and Parrington Associates, owed $985,000 which was due in September and has not been repaid. The company said that it was in talks with many of its creditors.

Mr Maxwell told The Independent on Sunday that he was confident Telemonde would survive. "We published our quarterly results last week on a going concern basis, and they were audited [by accountants Moores Stephens]," he said. "We would not have said we were a going concern if we were not a going concern."

Mr Maxwell founded Telemonde three years ago, floating it on the Nasdaq market in the US. The business has been in financial difficulty for some time, surviving at least two cash crises.

In that time it has run up losses of more than $100m and documents filed by Telemonde indicate that if the company went under there would be little left for creditors.