RICHARD EDEN: New trauma for Holly Willoughby as taxman seeks to shut her firm

She’s endured two torrid years since it first emerged that her co-presenter Phillip Schofield had pursued an affair with a much younger male colleague who was only 15 when Schofield first encountered him.

Things then became much grimmer for Holly Willoughby when she learned that she was the subject of a kidnap and murder plot – prompting her to step down from ITV’s This Morning for her own safety.

And just as it seemed the presenter had put that awful time behind her – bolstered by reports ITV is eager to offer her a new £1million deal – I can reveal that she now faces another ordeal.

For Holly, 43, is in the sights of the taxman.

Indeed, this week HMRC opened fire by issuing a winding-up petition against Roxy Media, the company which Holly and her husband, television producer Dan Baldwin, 49, set up in 2008.

It is an intriguing development. Roxy Media owed £330,000 in corporation tax, as was recorded in its most recently submitted accounts.

However, one of Holly’s representatives tells me that no informed comment can be made at this stage.

A financial expert surmises that the confrontation may arise from differing interpretations of Holly’s tax status.

‘It’s possible her This Morning salary was paid into the company as freelance income,’ she tells me, ‘whereas the tax office may consider that she was employed by ITV and that the income should have been taxed on a PAYE basis’.

‘You’d expect HMRC and Roxy Media to have been in dialogue,’ the expert adds, ‘so it’s possible that the tax office has issued the petition in a bid to hurry things up’.

At least Holly can console herself that she has a bolt-hole where she can remain aloof from the fray while her accountants go into battle on her behalf.

Last year, she and Dan snapped up a six-bedroom house away from London – which they paid £8million for without a mortgage.