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Legal challenges on past, present and future tax issues

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    Legal challenges on past, present and future tax issues

    First - there will be some of you who see this as touting for business. If the proposal below comes to fruition and if me or my firm is engaged to help, then I/we will benefit. If that happens, we will be on commercial terms based on existing hourly rates. If this is a reason why you would not consider the below, so be it - you have been warned.

    The present tax situation for contractors has a number of areas which may be susceptible for a legal challenge. These include:
    • 2019 charge including closed years
    • 2019 charge applying to non resident people
    • unfairness in application of settlement proposals
    • unfairness in collection practices
    • whether COP8/discovery is valid and therefore years are open/closed


    We all know that arguing these points with HMRC will be a slow and expensive process and HMRC is adept at playing the game of wearing out your funds and enthusiasm long before you get to any reasonably sensible conclusion. This is especially the case where individuals are going it alone.

    Our (WTT) opinion is that certainly the first two matters above can only be effectively challenged in a mass action that is funded and ready to go as early as possible.

    That action should look to start as soon as we see the legislation which I'm guessing will be when the next Budget happens. That might be late June/early July if the new crop of MP's get their act together or perhaps they will wait until the planned Autumn Budget. Let's hope for the latter.

    We (WTT) are not a law firm. We cannot therefore undertake the work necessary to prepare, present and prosecute a legal challenge. We have our favourites to do this work, but there are many law firms out there and some form of beauty parade is sensible.

    We (WTT) would however be prepared to assist in bringing together a group and providing assistance where we can. We see this as being a ringfenced part of our Big Group forum to begin with. Hopefully however it will grow quickly and given that most of you here are IT specialists, I would hope that hosting and administrating the group would swiftly move off our forum (and cost base).

    We see ourselves as offering help in how to constitute and administer the group and provide advice and experience. It may be that the group also wishes to use us (WTT) for tax advice, but again, there are lots of other tax firms out there.

    The group would need two things immediately.

    The first is a committee. This is perhaps a pathfinder group who can agree a constitution and aims and control the funds and processes such as the beauty parades. We see this as something to be done in the next 4 to 6 weeks.

    The second is funds. We (WTT) are not authorised to hold client funds and have no wish to do so. The above committee therefore needs a bank account and signing powers etc. This is because, in our opinion, trying to launch a legal action without funds and holding out the collecting tin only at the point the lawyers need paying, is doomed to fail. The difference between those shouting about unfairness and those prepared to back it with money is wide.

    So we see a real need to get ORGANISED.

    Organised QUICKLY.

    Ready to go this Autumn at the latest.

    We are prepared to help get this off the ground and rolling.

    We are prepared to recommend to Big Group members the benefits of joining.

    We are prepared to be involved/not involved as the committee above decides.

    Who's in?
    Best Forum Adviser & Forum Personality of the Year 2018.

    (No, me neither).

    #2
    get involved

    I would be happy to give time to this, in whatever capacity I could give benefit.

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by webberg View Post
      [*]2019 charge including closed years[*]2019 charge applying to non resident people
      I assume from this that you fully expect the 2019 loan charge to reappear after the election?

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by WalterWhite View Post
        I assume from this that you fully expect the 2019 loan charge to reappear after the election?
        Yes - can we keep this thread on message please?
        Best Forum Adviser & Forum Personality of the Year 2018.

        (No, me neither).

        Comment


          #5
          In

          Comment


            #6
            Perhaps you could also indicate if you would be willing to serve on a committee please?
            Best Forum Adviser & Forum Personality of the Year 2018.

            (No, me neither).

            Comment


              #7
              Committee

              I would certainly be willing to serve on a committee, or in deed any other capacity that would be of use.

              Comment


                #8
                http://forums.contractoruk.com/hmrc-...following.html

                Comment


                  #9
                  Not sure what that post means?

                  Are you suggesting that I/we have no skin in the game and are simply looking to make fees from process?

                  That might be a reasonable position but a few economics.

                  Let's assume that 1,000 joined and agreed to pay £500 each. Obviously gross funds controlled by committee = £500,000.

                  That would be enough for a claim to be prepared and laid before a Court.

                  That needs a law firm (to be appointed by a committee) and not a tax firm. As I mentioned, I am not a lawyer and do not work in a law firm.

                  I accept that as a tax firm we are as better versed in contactor tax than many but by no means all other firms. we would be quite happy to submit our credentials to the committee for a piece of work required. The legal/tax split here though is perhaps 9/1.

                  So what's in it for us?

                  A strong legal challenge helps all contractors. And that included BG members.

                  We have seen other challenges run of steam and funds part way though the process and that leads to either abandonment of the challenge or a disproportionately small number of people picking up the tab. We want to avoid that.

                  HMRC claims that 40,000 people are caught in the 2019 charge.

                  Even if the numbers are half of that and only 25% of those contribute say £100, we have a decent fund.
                  Best Forum Adviser & Forum Personality of the Year 2018.

                  (No, me neither).

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by webberg View Post
                    gross funds controlled by committee = £500,000.

                    That would be enough for a claim to be prepared and laid before a Court.
                    You might want to set out what you think the realistic costs are and get an independent view of the realistic chances of success. I understand that the judicial review on s24 Finance (No2) Act 2015 was expected to cost £600,000 if permission was given for a full review. They spent around £100,000 and were refused permission on all grounds. There will be people on here who know how much the judicial review on BN66 cost. I have no idea how much it cost. But the case was lost and the judge said that the retrospective changes were proportionate.

                    Your original post lists five different points. Four of those are likely to need to go through the judicial review process, with the other being an FTT thing. So that says that the costs may be substantially higher if you get to the full review stage and do the FTT.

                    There is then a question of what chance you have of winning? I'm not going to comment on the settlement proposals / collection practices as that is not my area. But I think that the chances of winning on the 2019 loan charge is zero. Nowhere near 1%. And if you win in the high court, the government will take it much further, so look to raise even more money, and even more money. The disguised remuneration changes are pencilled to raise well over £2bn in the next few years. The government just can't afford to lose that. And even if they did lose at any stage, I'd bet that any legislation will be tweaked to make sure that it achieves its aims.

                    So my personal view (and I don't work for HMRC and I don't advise contractors) is that is people want to spend the money then they should be comfortable knowing that the only people who will win are the advisers.

                    Comment

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