BN66 - Time to fight back (Chapter 3)

[sbaker3]

Written to MP

Hi, I was forwarded your letter to send to my MP by a colleague & fellow thread member, which I duly did and now have a reply asking for more specific info ie copies of relevant correspondance. What or how should I reply?
Thanks

[deckster]

In the long run, who do you think this would hurt most? We are anonymous nobodys. But this would lead to a lot of very awkward questions:

1) If it was unlawful evasion, why aren't they facing penalties. Why aren't they being prosecuted.

2) Why did it take 8 years to discover this?

3) What is this legislation?

But that's just the point. We're a headline, a couple of inches at most. Nobody (least of all a journo) is going to bother asking those questions, let along get around to answering them in any depth. Do you really think that going into great length about Padmore and what may or may not have been said in an obscure Commons debate in 2002 will make good copy? Maybe for a tax trade mag, but in the Times (or, god forbid, the Sun?). Right now, to the vast majority of the population we're tax-dodging scum and the whole issue of due process, transparency and general incompetence is entirely secondary to the main story.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

But that's just the point. We're a headline, a couple of inches at most. Nobody (least of all a journo) is going to bother asking those questions, let along get around to answering them in any depth. Do you really think that going into great length about Padmore and what may or may not have been said in an obscure Commons debate in 2002 will make good copy? Maybe for a tax trade mag, but in the Times (or, god forbid, the Sun?). Right now, to the vast majority of the population we're tax-dodging scum and the whole issue of due process, transparency and general incompetence is entirely secondary to the main story.

You are missing my point. It wouldn't matter whether the Press investigated it properly or not. The more lurid they make it sound the better.

We could then use this publicity to challenge HMRC and Government. MPs are more likely to raise questions in the House if something has been reported in the papers, even it has been falsely portrayed.

HMRC and the Government have more reason for keeping this quiet than we do. What are HMRC going to do? Release our names to the press? There is nothing they can do to us as individuals.

And remember, "right" is on our side. All the professional bodies, including the Law Society, have condemned this legislation as wrong in principle.

[SLB]

But that's just the point. We're a headline, a couple of inches at most. Nobody (least of all a journo) is going to bother asking those questions, let along get around to answering them in any depth. Do you really think that going into great length about Padmore and what may or may not have been said in an obscure Commons debate in 2002 will make good copy? Maybe for a tax trade mag, but in the Times (or, god forbid, the Sun?). Right now, to the vast majority of the population we're tax-dodging scum and the whole issue of due process, transparency and general incompetence is entirely secondary to the main story.

I agree with Deckster. We know the main issues are that the government has the option to make anything and everything an offence and back date it to catch everybody and that businesses and individuals have a right to stable legislation for financial planning. However, that doesn’t make for a snappy headline and it is far too in-depth a story to bother reporting the correct facts of the case, even though it has the potential to affect everyone in the country if retrospective legislation is left unchecked.

However, the easy (but wrong!) headline is about tax cheats. The correct questions about lack of penalties being faced and why leave it 8 years to crackdown on it will not be asked. I agree we are “nobodys”, but we are also novices when it comes to the media and we have no means to counter them if/when things are spun badly. Countering million-plus readerships of red-tops would be utterly impossible for us.

Has anyone spoken to Montp about this??

[Squicker]

You are missing my point. It wouldn't matter whether the Press investigated it properly or not. The more lurid they make it sound the better.

We could then use this publicity to challenge HMRC and Government. MPs are more likely to raise questions in the House if something has been reported in the papers, even it has been falsely portrayed.

HMRC and the Government have more reason for keeping this quiet than we do. What are HMRC going to do? Release our names to the press? There is nothing they can do to us as individuals.

And remember, "right" is on our side. All the professional bodies, including the Law Society, have condemned this legislation as wrong in principle.

I don't yet know where I sit on this one. What is the end of objective of going to the press?

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Ask yourself this

Stephen Timms has been all over the press recently banging on about tax avoidance. There was a report in the papers recently about how they closed a scheme down within a matter of weeks.

So, why do you think the Treasury and HMRC have not made political capital out of Section 58 when they are usually so quick to blow their own trumpet?

Don't you think their press office would have been firing off press releases left, right and center, about the how the Govt had closed this highly abusive scheme down, if it was something they were proud of?

Section 58 was grubby and they know it.

[poppy01]

I don't yet know where I sit on this one. What is the end of objective of going to the press?

nail the b*****ds

[SLB]

You are missing my point. It wouldn't matter whether the Press investigated it properly or not. The more lurid they make it sound the better.

We could then use this publicity to challenge HMRC and Government. MPs are more likely to raise questions in the House if something has been reported in the papers, even it has been falsely portrayed.

HMRC and the Government have more reason for keeping this quiet than we do. What are HMRC going to do? Release our names to the press? There is nothing they can do to us as individuals.

And remember, "right" is on our side. All the professional bodies, including the Law Society, have condemned this legislation as wrong in principle.

I'm all for lurid headlines against HMRC, this awful (or should that be unlawful) legislation and this government, but I fear we would be the subject of the headlines. Even though we have right on our side and all relevant professional bodies have denounced the legislation.

[ContractIn]

Press ARticle

For what it's worth I don't think we will get any sympathy from the general public, however DR's point is correct and whether we do or don't the point is to highlight HMRC's under hand tactics at changing a law retrospectively.

The right people who can help our cause will see the bigger picture of what has happened, not that we are "tax dodging scum" and help lobby and abolish Section 58.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

I don't yet know where I sit on this one. What is the end of objective of going to the press?

The direct objective is to:

1) To expose HMRC's maladministration in allowing the scheme to escalate for 7 years without taking any action. They have known about it since 2001, they have been investigating it since 2003, and they did a deal with another scheme in 2003. What else would you call this other than maladministration?

2) To expose the Government's abuse of power. Using the extreme force of retrospective legislation as a remedy for HMRC's maladministration is an afront to natural justice.

Even if the press don't report it this way, we can still indirectly use any publicity to raise more awareness of this in Parliament.

No matter how unfairly it is reported, it cannot hurt court proceedings which will be argued on points of law.