Is CUK advertising dodgy schemes again

[ASB]

John Lewis is possibly a bad example given its unusual structure.

You seem to be suggesting you are aware of the broad details of the scheme. Care to spill the beans?

[mmmBeer]

John Lewis is possibly a bad example given its unusual structure.

You seem to be suggesting you are aware of the broad details of the scheme. Care to spill the beans?

Yes Im thinking of switching to a brolly for a year so enquired for more details.
I think the JL 'unusual structure' is exactly the core of the scheme and why it would be hard to challenge without opening a can of worms.
To be honest I havent ruled our using them so would like to hear from some of the accountants on here what their view is as well. Can I put the broad details up without breaking any forum rules?

[centurian]

Im thinking of switching to a brolly for a year

"Brolly" is quite a broad term - most people think of "brolly" as a PAYE umbrella - utterly zero risk as you are paying sheds loads of tax - unless you fiddle your expenses, which is borderline evasion.

I think we can all be pretty sure that this is not a PAYE Umbrella.

You simply won't get a clear answer to such schemes, because until it is tested in court in front of a judge, nobody knows whether it is legal or not. Right now, the best you can get, is a "best guess" from a very expensive barrister - as these have been wrong before.

I wouldn't count on any (probably superficial) similarities to John Lewis as a silver bullet. Many of the movie investment schemes thought they were safe because they did do a (little) bit of genuine film investment as a cover. Judges have discretion to look through that.

Nothing wrong with taking the risk, if you think the returns are worth it - and you are fully prepared if/when it all goes wrong.

[cojak]

Is CUK advertising dodgy schemes again

Yes Im thinking of switching to a brolly for a year so enquired for more details.
I think the JL 'unusual structure' is exactly the core of the scheme and why it would be hard to challenge without opening a can of worms.
To be honest I havent ruled our using them so would like to hear from some of the accountants on here what their view is as well. Can I put the broad details up without breaking any forum rules?

Well if HMRC do bite you on the arse you're going to have to dump your current login if you come back crying because we WILL point and laugh at you if you don't.

[cojak]

Post away - but if you name names and it looks like advertising I'll permaban you immediately (solving you the problem of my previous post).

[centurian]

Well if HMRC do bite you on the arse you're going to have to dump your current login if you come back crying because we WILL point and laugh at you if you don't.

Yeah, I also thought about telling him not to come back whining like a baby if it all went wrong, but somehow I suspect he would have come crawling back under a new name anyway, in order to plead complete ignorance.

One can sympathise with some of those caught up in the schemes - having been totally bamboozled by the sales pitch in the early days. But there are also a sizeable chunk, who are just high risk in nature - and would have jumped into the scheme anyway - heck, some even jumped into other schemes. Up until 18 months ago, I had to put up with contractors within earshot constantly bragging about how they were paying almost no tax - even when a guy in the next row was being nailed for BN66.

The bragging has gone quiet recently though...

[mudskipper]

"We offer the best tax management and salary packages legally available to todays contractor"

Missing apostrophe. For that reason, I'm out.

[mmmBeer]

Post away - but if you name names and it looks like advertising I'll permaban you immediately (solving you the problem of my previous post).

Err it was named in the OP and is being advertised on your home page with a link! Anyway I just wanted to know a bit more but will probably just end up going with a paye option for peace of mind.
It's a scheme in which you own joint shares with the brolly and they pay you a small paye amount plus dividends on the shares and also then sell the shares back to utilise your annual CGT allowance. I don't know the exact maths but they work it out at around 80% retention.

[ASB]

I suspect that has more holes in it than gruyere.

ir35 status at end client, dividend amount linked to fees generated, no commercial reasons, disguised remuneration regs all look to be ways of attacking it. In effect the only gain compared to being outside ir35 would be cgt saving on the share disposal. So it would potentially save 2k or 4k a year.

[cojak]

Err it was named in the OP and is being advertised on your home page with a link! Anyway I just wanted to know a bit more but will probably just end up going with a paye option for peace of mind.
It's a scheme in which you own joint shares with the brolly and they pay you a small paye amount plus dividends on the shares and also then sell the shares back to utilise your annual CGT allowance. I don't know the exact maths but they work it out at around 80% retention.

Oh, right you are. I missed the connection. My other bit still applies though. Search for the Breeze thread..