BN66 - Time to fight back (Chapter 3)

[Little'Old Me]

Hmrc

It states

Our system does not currently support the display of your Self Assessment account.

Ho hum.

There is one section in the HMRC who can manually make changes your account. When they are doing things (which no-one else can or is allowed to do), details of your account comes off line. It will stay this way, until they finish. It stops the rest of the HMRC doing things which may interfere with what they are doing.... !!!

I hope this makes sense............

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Suo Motu Settlement

It is clear from the SuoMotu settlement that HMRC didn't have a clue how to attack the scheme.

For those who joined the scheme early on, you might care to look back over the letters you received from Mr B et al. Then have a read of this which is the opinion Jones got from David Milne QC, which casts doubt over the validity of the scheme.

http://www.ir35amnesty.com/dm.pdf

Notice any similarities? Jones admits in the settlement to showing HMRC a copy of this and of course they agreed with it! It looks like they then plagiarised it to come up with the letters they then sent to us.

However, the real corker in the document is that HMRC said that even if they lost in court on the David Milne arguments, they would then use IR35 to attack the scheme!!!

What a bunch of muppets!!!

PS. And of course there was no mention anywhere of 1987 or Padmore.

[sgee]

Sorry - I am probably being a bit slow (and yes I did read the legalese in the doc, although not sure this made it any clearer for me).. Just to get this in context, the QC in this did not think the scheme stood up? This is surely not a good thing? Yet I fear I am missing the point as the last post drew positive conclusions. Would you mind breaking it down a bit for me and any other slower members of the community...

I presume there is a link between this in 2001 and the settlement for SuoM meaning that having examined all this the legal advice wasn't conclusive enough for them to do anything other than agree to settle? Thus demonstrating that there wasn't really a case to answer, i.e they couldn't attack the scheme as it actually was acceptable in terms of the legals?


Thanks!

[BrilloPad]

Should I change my agent to be the umbrella company ?

Nope. As it all goes to the same people anyway!

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Sorry - I am probably being a bit slow (and yes I did read the legalese in the doc, although not sure this made it any clearer for me).. Just to get this in context, the QC in this did not think the scheme stood up? This is surely not a good thing? Yet I fear I am missing the point as the last post drew positive conclusions. Would you mind breaking it down a bit for me and any other slower members of the community...

Thanks!

Yes, but they did say another QC took a different view.

Also, remember this was back in 2003. If this particular QC's opinion had been so compelling, wouldn't HMRC have taken us to court at some point in the last 5 years? They must have concluded that the arguments weren't strong enough for them to win.

I can't believe that HMRC would have opted for retrospective legislation if there had been any chance that they could have won in court.

They knew they were stuffed so they decided to deliberately and wilfully manipulate Parliament to get what they wanted.

[sgee]

I se (I think).. There is a link between this in 2001 and the settlement for SuoM meaning that having examined all this the legal advice wasn't conclusive enough for them to do anything other than agree to settle? Thus demonstrating that there wasn't really a case to answer, i.e they couldn't attack the scheme as it actually was acceptable in terms of the legals, and although they had one opinion they could try, it wasn't particularly strong and in fact was refuted by other legal experts anyway..

Am I getting warm?

[DonkeyRhubarb]

I se (I think).. There is a link between this in 2001 and the settlement for SuoM meaning that having examined all this the legal advice wasn't conclusive enough for them to do anything other than agree to settle? Thus demonstrating that there wasn't really a case to answer, i.e they couldn't attack the scheme as it actually was acceptable in terms of the legals, and although they had one opinion they could try, it wasn't particularly strong and in fact was refuted by other legal experts anyway..

Am I getting warm?

Yes. Obviously they weren't going to admit to SuoM that they didn't know how to defeat it. After all, Jones was handing everyone over on a plate and they probably couldn't believe their luck.

I suspect, however, that HMRC later came to regret doing this deal.

This leaves one obvious question. Why didn't HMRC offer this deal to Montpelier?

I think the answer is probably that they knew Montp wouldn't roll over, and by making the offer they would risk totally undermining their position.

[macdat]

Response to follow up letter

I have this morning had a response to the follow up letter that I sent to my MP yesterday (via the 'WriteToThem' website).

It says....

"Thank you for your further message to Michael Mates. Mr. Mates is now bringing your concerns to the attention of the Minister as you have asked. He will be in touch again as soon as he has a response."

[AlbionRovers]

The Agent is the person or company you have authorised to submit tax returns etc, normally an accountant. If you have no agent it just means you submit your SA return.

==

Agreed, but I don't submit anything, Montpelier do. And I have no agent, according to the GG site?

[AlbionRovers]

There is one section in the HMRC who can manually make changes your account. When they are doing things (which no-one else can or is allowed to do), details of your account comes off line. It will stay this way, until they finish. It stops the rest of the HMRC doing things which may interfere with what they are doing.... !!!

I hope this makes sense............

==

Yip, I figured as much, thanks.