BN66 - Time to fight back (Chapter 3)

[scubadiver]

FoI Request

I'm assuming that any Freedom of Information request to the Treasury and HMRC would be delayed until the outcome of the Judicial Review or appeals to ECHR have been finalised.

Lodging an FoI requesting assumes that civil servants and politicians are actually keeping and making available documents that could potentially embarrass themselves and the Government (to be fair in their shoes I would have discussed a lot of the more interesting details in un-minuted meetings). Failing that I'm sure they will argue that the information isn't centrally held and/or that its too expensive to recover said information.

[ASB]

It confirms what was set out quite clearly in 1987 and what was intended by the Isle of Man treaty when it was entered into

The intent of parliament is an interesting thing. It seems quite clear to me (and possibly most users of these schemes ) that parliament always intended this sort of income to be caught.

However, in court hearing intent of parliament is only ever in any way relevant when the act as written is ambiguous. i.e. clear non interpretive language overrides the intent of parliament. It does seem that it may well be the case that the relevant legislation is clear - it just inadvertantly says what HMRC don't want it to - so parliamentary intent is broadly irrelevant.

My opinion is that when people start going on about intent of parliament it is because they know the legislation is at best poorly drafted - and they are on a sticky wicket. What is important is what the legislation actually says; not what it was meant to say. Given the reliance on it, the JR submitted etc it would seem to me that at the very least a reasonable number of highly qualified people believe it was sufficiently clear to use to escape tax on this sort of income.

What seems pretty clear is that whatever the outcome of the JR it is going to have to end up ECHR for a declaration of incompatability on the retrospective bit before this avenue of attack is over.

[Toocan]

The intent of parliament is an interesting thing. It seems quite clear to me (and possibly most users of these schemes ) that parliament always intended this sort of income to be caught.

Is there a convention when it comes to the “intention of Parliament”, in that what they write is what they intended? I think this is only modified to the extent that if the writing is not clear then the judge can go back to Hansard to seek qualification. But if the debate is silent on the point then there is no “intention of Parliament”.

If one went against the intention of Parliament then that would be tax evasion. Otherwise it is tax avoidance.

For example, when Parliament passed the European communities act they effectively gave up Parliamentary Supremacy. Was that their intention? This was the outcome of the Factortame case. (For the purists Parliament is still supreme in that they can repeal the European Communities Act, but until they do they are not (!) – more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factortame_case )

In our case, HMRC may wish that trusts had been covered, but they weren’t. And as my previous post indicated – HMRC knew this and did nothing about it.

[seadog]

[QUOTE=DonkeyRhubarb;739032]This is what Treasury officials told the Treasury Committee when the measure was first discussed.

http://www.publications.parliament.u...sy/430/430.pdf

If you read the next paragrah on this you will find that the committee requested the sort of information we want to know

"We are concerned by the suggestion that the Government has known about this abuse for some time and yet has failed to act. We recommend that the Government set out, in its response to this Report, when it was first alerted to the abuse, why action was not taken earlier and why it considers a 21–year period of retrospection appropriate. We expect the Government to move
swiftly to close future abuses of the tax system that are disclosed to them."

Is there any way we can find out if the Goverment has responded to this report as requested.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

[QUOTE=seadog;739630]

"We are concerned by the suggestion that the Government has known about this abuse for some time and yet has failed to act. We recommend that the Government set out, in its response to this Report, when it was first alerted to the abuse, why action was not taken earlier and why it considers a 21–year period of retrospection appropriate. We expect the Government to move
swiftly to close future abuses of the tax system that are disclosed to them."

Is there any way we can find out if the Goverment has responded to this report as requested.

If they did, I didn't see anything published. Jane Kennedy sort of answered the question in the debate on the Bill but as you would expect it was carefully selective in its presentation of the facts.

You can read what she had to say here.

Part1:
http://www.publications.parliament.u...m/80522s01.htm
Part2:
http://www.publications.parliament.u...m/80522s02.htm

Whether it would have made any difference or not if they had made a full disclosure, is a mute point. I suspect they would have just used their majority to bulldoze it through no matter how much controversy it raised.

However, one thing I do bitterly regret is that we didn't lobby harder at the time. Every single scheme member who was under investigation by HMRC should have written to their MP, stating which tax years were under enquiry. Unfortunately, only a few of us wrote so she was able to get away with saying this:

I have received one or two representations on the matter, but I understood that there was broad acceptance that the Government were expected to take this step. The hon. Member for South-East Cornwall says that that is not the case, but I have seen only one or two representations, and I was not aware of that concern being widespread.

[MuddyFunster]

[QUOTE=DonkeyRhubarb;739926]

However, one thing I do bitterly regret is that we didn't lobby harder at the time. Every single scheme member who was under investigation by HMRC should have written to their MP, stating which tax years were under enquiry.

I would've gladly written to my MP, but the first thing I knew about BN66 was when I received the letter from Mr. YouKnowWho telling me I had to pay up. I expect this is the same for the vast majority of people in our situation. We just didn't know anything about it until it was too late.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

[QUOTE=MuddyFunster;739948]

I would've gladly written to my MP, but the first thing I knew about BN66 was when I received the letter from Mr. YouKnowWho telling me I had to pay up. I expect this is the same for the vast majority of people in our situation. We just didn't know anything about it until it was too late.

I think this was a failure on Montpelier's part. They could have written to us and hinted that if we were opposed to the legislation we might want to make our MP aware of that.

If Ms Kennedy had received 1000+ letters instead of a handful, it might have been harder to dismiss.

Anyway, it's water under the bridge now.


PS. some jobsworth in MontP even tried to block our efforts to enlist other scheme members in the campaign

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Next time will be different

If the JR goes in our favour then every single person who is affected by this should immediately write to their MP requesting their support to get the Government to bow to the courts and overturn the legislation.

We should not wait to see how the Government responds, we should hit them hard, fast and en masse.

Hopefully, next time we can count on a bit more support from MontP.

[BrilloPad]

If the JR goes in our favour then every single person who is affected by this should immediately write to their MP requesting their support to get the Government to bow to the courts and overturn the legislation.

We should not wait to see how the Government responds, we should hit them hard, fast and en masse.

Hopefully, next time we can count on a bit more support from MontP.

Like maybe getting JC to start the "bn66 JR write to your MP thread"?

[nuffsaid]

Like maybe getting JC to start the "bn66 JR write to your MP thread"?

John Cleese?