BN66 - Time to fight back (Chapter 3)

[SLB]

No interest will accrue until outcome of JR which I would guess will be next year

Are you sure that is the case Robinhood?

I thought interest only stopped accruing if you take out a CTD for the amount that is ‘supposedly’ owed. If your CTD only covers half of what is ‘supposedly’ owed, interest only accrues against the remaining half that is not covered by the CTD.
Can anyone confirm?

I would be very pleased if you are correct though!!

[bananarepublic]

First of all this is great news about the JR. HMRC's disgraceful attempt to keep this out of the courts has failed.

As for the rest of it, as far as I am aware interest will continue accruing on the defered tax. I don't think today changes anything. Remember, we have won permission for our case to be heard. A small but significant step.

If we win the JR, there is still a possibility that HMRC will persue us on the basis of the law as it existed at the time. In fact I think it is a racing certainty - after all they are spending other peoples money on this.

If we lost then we would be liable for the tax plus any acrued interest.

Or perhaps HMRC will seek a face saving settlement.

[nuffsaid]

Or perhaps HMRC will seek a face saving settlement.

I'd be happy with 10%.


Are you listening Mr B?

[DonkeyRhubarb]

If we win the JR, there is still a possibility that HMRC will persue us on the basis of the law as it existed at the time. In fact I think it is a racing certainty - after all they are spending other peoples money on this.

Or perhaps HMRC will seek a face saving settlement.

If we win, HMRC will more than likely appeal. The Judge at the PwC hearing said this would almost certainly end up in Europe.

You are right, HMRC could always try and challenge the scheme based on the old law. Any they will probably do this just to be bloody minded, even though they'd know they would lose.

Their objective I'm sure is to string this out as long as possible to maximise the FUD. They know the fear & uncertainty is causing stress and it's probably scaring others off from using these types of schemes.

The one thing they won't be expecting though is the JCHR curved ball. I can tell you that this will rile them far more than the JR being granted. The legal process is something they can drag out for years but this Committee is outside their control.

I think I may have to go into hiding when they find out I'm behind this.

[Ninja]

Well done to DR et al. We couldn't have got this far without you.

[bombaycat]

Just one word

toppage!!

[rosbiff]

Thank you

Thank you to all who attended and bought the news to us so soon, I don't think I could have stood the strain of waiting till "some time in July" for MP to give us an update.

Thanks again

[TheGadgetMan]

Has Someone Told Poppy?

This should cheer him up...

[Earlyflash]

Hi all,

I was one of those in the court to see proceedings today, and I have to say, it was very very interesting.

I thought that the MP QC was actually a very good orator and made his point very well.

The HMRC QC was way off the mark when he spent quite a lot of time trying to convince the Judge that it was out of time, which the judge very clearly thought was bonkers (you could see that from his body language).

In my opinion, their case was actually contradictory in places and didn't, to me, seem to make a lot of sense. That said, their QC was also a good orator and made his (albeit confused) case quite well. I wouldn't underestimate them as yet.

The one thing that really concerned me was the Judge making a comment like so (paraphrasing slightly): "[...] your client is based in the UK, earns money for the partnership in the UK and doesn't pay UK tax. How exactly did he think that he could 'get away with that' [...]".

The answer of course is that the law allows him to, but yet again we see the same old rhetoric coming through. In fact the HMRC QC made a similar point ("he was operating against the spirit of the law").

Frankly this is bonkers old rubbish, and it has no place in a court or anywhere else for this matter. If the law allows it, as per the statute, then it's legal. End of discussion.

It makes no odds what the spirit of the Tax Law is (I agree that this is somewhat different in Criminal cases), the statute is the only important part. If the Government can't put what it means on paper correctly, that's hardly our bloody fault.

The MP QC was quite quick to answer this point, but I thought it was very disappointing to hear the same old irrelevancies coming up from a Lord.

All in all though, it was very interesting and a good significant win for MP.

The fact that the HMRC lackeys couldn't look at us as they left tells it's own story, I think. (Admittedly we were four/five strong outside waiting for them).

Anyway, I'm sure that I'm the first back home from the guys at court, we had to have a few drinks to celebrate afterwards..

For the others who were there, it was great to meet up with you and highly enlightening. I'll be back for round two, most likely.

[BrilloPad]

The fact that the HMRC lackeys couldn't look at us as they left tells it's own story, I think. (Admittedly we were four/five strong outside waiting for them).

Maybe they thought I was among you lot.

Very well done to all who attended and great reporting.