BN66 - the road to Judicial Review

[PlaneSailing]

Question

Excellent post Seadog.

As our Barrister repeatedly stated, it all comes down to proportionality.

It is very hard to see the imposition of a 7-year retrospective tax as proportional in the light of Technical Bulletin 63.

Who received Technical Note 63? Was this circulated throughout the
Revenue or was it directed at just a couple of people?

[smalldog]

This all seems so seedy im wondering if we can request a public enquiry into the events leading to the passing of BN66 legislation. I for one have no confidence that we have got to the bottom of all of this and if we win I think in some ways there are even more grounds to justify one in the interests of rooting out the rotten apples. Such people should be relieved of their posts, you cant have such people working in a public body.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Who received Technical Note 63? Was this circulated throughout the
Revenue or was it directed at just a couple of people?

Distribution:

• Staff in Area offices dealing with SA taxpayers
• Staff examining company accounts

Sounds like quite a wide distribution to me.

But, of course, obviously it was just cobbled together by a "junior" and no-one else approved it.

They really are lying chumps.

[smalldog]

Foi

Im guessing we could issue an FOI request on TN63 to see who approved it, be hilarious if it transpires Hartnett approved it!!!! As a public sector body they must retain a full and complete audit trail which can be scrutinised, so must have this information...I reckon we will expose yet another lie that this wasnt just a junior a bit bored with nothing to do who thought it would be an interesting exercise...after all thats the implication being made by HMRC..a junior did such a thing off their own back...yeh right

[johnnyguitar]

end it all now

Looks like things are getting serious for HMRC.
As several have indicated on here, there may be a serious case/charges to be examined against HMRC, when we win this.
As we know HMRC are reading this - might I suggest an olive branch here?

Assuming we win, HMRC, if threatened with investigations etc, are much more likely to appeal as there would be more at stake for them, which will drag this on longer for all of us.

Even though I totally agree with other posters here that people should be brought to account, and I'm also thirsty for blood, but I'm wondering if it isn't in our best interests to offer the following to HMRC:
i.e. when we win, HMRC to drop any appeals, and we will walk away without pursuing any charges/investigations further - in others words end this now.

We wouldn't have our vengence but at least we could draw a line under it.

All this fighting talk, which I totally understand and feel, is just likely to back them into a corner, giving them no option other than to keep fighting and drag the fight out longer.
Give them a door to leave by and it would at least close this off for us right now.

Just a thought - don't flame me for it!

[smalldog]

Johnny i'd be more than happy to let this all drop. But based on HMRC's arrogance Im not convinced they would, as DR said which I thought was a total classic:

Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

just substitute the words Terminator = HMRC, and dead = bankrupt..

there is an easy out for them too, the judge has ruled its not clarification therefore they can quite easily say...we were wrong, nothing wrong with that but the powers at be in HMRC dont seem to have such vocabulary...

[SantaClaus]

Johnny i'd be more than happy to let this all drop. But based on HMRC's arrogance Im not convinced they would, as DR said which I thought was a total classic:

Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

just substitute the words Terminator = HMRC, and dead = bankrupt..

there is an easy out for them too, the judge has ruled its not clarification therefore they can quite easily say...we were wrong, nothing wrong with that but the powers at be in HMRC dont seem to have such vocabulary...

I don't think Montpelier would be ready to let this drop either.
There is a lot more at stake here, i.e. whether retrospection can be applied at will to any tax measure and possibly the existence of the tax planning industry.

[OnYourBikeGB]

Johnny i'd be more than happy to let this all drop. But based on HMRC's arrogance Im not convinced they would, as DR said which I thought was a total classic:

Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

just substitute the words Terminator = HMRC, and dead = bankrupt..

there is an easy out for them too, the judge has ruled its not clarification therefore they can quite easily say...we were wrong, nothing wrong with that but the powers at be in HMRC dont seem to have such vocabulary...

I have to agree. If we let them off the hook, what's to stop them coming back to get us again at a later date? Also, we need to be cautious here, no matter how much in the right we are, legal decisions can be weird and wonderful, the law and justice are not the same thing, unfortunately. But if we win, we should press home our advantage. We're not just dealing with individuals here, we are dealing with a faceless bureaucracy. I'd love to nail a few individuals, but it doesn't mean anything unless we can prevent it being done to us all over again by whoever picks up the reins. They are protected by the State and the facelessness of the Civil Service, they are risking nothing personally other than a slap on the wrist, whereas we risk losing everything. Would we ever trust them not to use any loophole they could to come after us again after what we have seen?

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Looks like things are getting serious for HMRC.
As several have indicated on here, there may be a serious case/charges to be examined against HMRC, when we win this.
As we know HMRC are reading this - might I suggest an olive branch here?

Assuming we win, HMRC, if threatened with investigations etc, are much more likely to appeal as there would be more at stake for them, which will drag this on longer for all of us.

Even though I totally agree with other posters here that people should be brought to account, and I'm also thirsty for blood, but I'm wondering if it isn't in our best interests to offer the following to HMRC:
i.e. when we win, HMRC to drop any appeals, and we will walk away without pursuing any charges/investigations further - in others words end this now.

We wouldn't have our vengence but at least we could draw a line under it.

All this fighting talk, which I totally understand and feel, is just likely to back them into a corner, giving them no option other than to keep fighting and drag the fight out longer.
Give them a door to leave by and it would at least close this off for us right now.

Just a thought - don't flame me for it!

If they lose the JR, they will have a lot more influential people breathing down their necks than us. They will be in the tulip with or without our intervention.

In fact, it may be that we don't have to do a single thing, other than just stand back and spectate.

[johnnyguitar]

If they lose the JR, they will have a lot more influential people breathing down their necks than us. They will be in the tulip with or without our intervention.

In fact, it may be that we don't have to do a single thing, other than just stand back and spectate.

OK, fair enough. I just thought that we might not want to give them more reasons for appealing the JR.