BN66 - the road to Judicial Review

[WhatEver]

ADMIN, please let BP back in

[QUOTE=Come on admin ...please please please please can you revoke the ban on BP ?

Regards

BP fan club 2010.[/QUOTE]

Couldn't agree more, BP's contribution and BN66 are above this petty spat. I'm saying BP is a saint but lets agree to disagree and move on at least for the moment. Once we've won and we can all stop scanning this forum countless times a day you and BP can continue your debate, but at the very least PLEASE revoke the ban.

[Cosmo]

Please Admin - Let him come back. BP's contribution to this forum is massive and if it wasn't for him, lots of people would be in a really worse state.

Please.

[portseven]

Wonder if there is a FOI request we can issue that could indicate how widespread the knowledge was about the real state of affairs. So did the Treasury Comittie know about the Technical Note?

[administrator]

Admin> BP generated the steam under which this train has taken us on a journey where we have collected some wonderful allies to take forward this quest for truth. His enthusiasm/intelligence and humour do balance his dark side.

Somewhere between "letting him off" and "banning him" lies the middle ground of "n days in the cooler" ..15 days in the sin bin/yellow card ? .....can you not consider this ?

We are all grown ups and know that ....forums can get heated on occasion but its is still all "sticks n stones" ..... and more often than not quite tongue in cheek.

IMHO I'd like to see BP back......his devils tail between his legs.
Come on guys ....make friends make friends ...never never break friends.
admin BP

Please read the thread in Light Relief:
http://forums.contractoruk.com/light...our-reply.html

I appreciate all the work BP put into this case but I will not have our integrity called into question. When pushed it became clear that BP had other issues about the forum that can only be described as childish. I replied in full giving him the right to reply where I am sure others would have banned him long before.

BP has had the ability to mail me to apologise and retract his statement, just the same as any other user via the contact forms on the site or through various friends that he has on the forum.

Read the thread above to see that I did more than I needed to in terms of the police investigation. Had I not asked the forum members to call the police (no details were passed to the police from us) then I am convinced that a court order would have been granted due to the serious nature of the comments made. We would have had to hand over details or risk having our servers removed and the forum users would have had a workplace visit from the police which would have been highly embarrassing and could have led to contract termination or non-renewal and I wanted to prevent that.

BP tried to say that HMRC have more powers than the police - they do not.

I do not feel I need to discuss this any further and I do not feel that someone who is unable to apologise and feels a level of hostility towards us, despite helping them out in a very serious situation, is worthy of any more of my time. To raise petty issues about a thread being closed (TPD) and post counts from another part of the forum (Light Relief) not counting to overall postcount, in the light of the seriousness of BN66, made me want to bang my head against the wall. I do not ban people lightly but having made my decision I will not change my mind, especially having still not received an apology or an admission of being wrong from BP.

Also just seen:

Don't shoot/ban the messenger....

"I regret getting banned from the point of view that I now have no right of reply to admin. I have received no email communication - I was not even aware I was banned until pointed out by another user.
But I still retain my point of view - I understand admin disagrees and I defend their right to disagree. What really annoys me is being treated like a child. To those who feel I should just go along with everything admin said I feel quite sorry. There are some things in life worth fighting for.
I have nothing more I want from cuk but feel I have alot more to contribute. To bn66. To numerous PMs about divorce/child access(including a single mum in the past). To tpd. And the joke thread.
I hope to be proposed as poster of the year 2010(I am still upset Mal won in 2009 after attacks on bn66 thread) and hope to get wide ranging support. from bn66. from those I helped. from those who liked the joke thread. from tpd.

BrilloPad"

Come on admin ...please please please please can you revoke the ban on BP ?

Regards

BP fan club 2010.

BP did not reply to the posts I made, and they were very detailed (I really feel like I wasted my time there), and instead announced his retirement from the forum here:
http://forums.contractoruk.com/1053684-post2084.html

I will not agree to disagree, BP was wrong in saying CUK "shopped" him and for some reason seems unable to admit that he was wrong.

I have not asked anyone to go along with anything, I have proof that we did not "shop" anyone and the message above shows a delusional idea that he is still justified in saying that we do not treat users private details with the utmost respect.

Having seen the message above it reaffirms my thoughts that the ban should remain. I will not be drawn any further on this.

[poppy01]

Please Admin - Let him come back. BP's contribution to this forum is massive and if it wasn't for him, lots of people would be in a really worse state.

Please.

Miss Cosmo Bennet: I heard that Mr. BrilloPad has been banned.
Miss Portseven Bennet: I would love Mr Brillopad to be reinstated.
Mrs. Whatever Bennet: Reinstating Mr. BrilloPad would set me up for ever.
Mr. Admin Bennet: And yet I am unmoved.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Wonder if there is a FOI request we can issue that could indicate how widespread the knowledge was about the real state of affairs. So did the Treasury Comittie know about the Technical Note?

I bet no-one outside HMRC knew about that Tech Note. Even the higher-ups in HMRC who concocted the legislation may not have been aware of it.

Although it's now a matter of public record because it was used as evidence in Court, I want to get it published for all to see, hence the reason I raised an FOI request.

This document goes right to the heart of what they knew and when they knew.

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

I bet no-one outside HMRC knew about that Tech Note. Even the higher-ups in HMRC who concocted the legislation may not have been aware of it.

Although it's now a matter of public record because it was used as evidence in Court, I want to get it published for all to see, hence the reason I raised an FOI request.

This document goes right to the heart of what they knew and when they knew.

DR, quite agree. I cannot believe that whoever authored TE63 was the only one in the masses who knew of it, read it or was of the same opinion. There is clearly a line in the sand in 2002 where HMRC as a body had a view towards this scheme. Given the publicity surrounding it, it simply beggars belief that an HMRC position in 2002 went without notice for nearly 6 years. If it did, then there is a separate case to be answered given the line of attack taken since then.

This matter reaches further than BN66. It's about accountability in how HMRC arrive at retrospective legislation. Such legislation is not trivial and all due diligence should be performed before considering it given the gravitas which does not go unnoticed by the Rees Rules amongst others. To consider that the scheme worked in 2002 and therefore was outside of 1987, makes the decision to go ahead with retrospection 6 years later a worry to everyone, not least us.

If you're going to do anything retrospectively, the first principle to be observed is that nothing you applied before was inept or found wanting. Otherwise, many might see retrospection as a "fix" for your past failings. That does not suffice to punish the innocent and admonish those who failed.

That is not what our Executive should tolerate, nor the Courts, nor the public.

Government has been tainted over the last year and this matter does nothing to restore faith or trust.

What the public want (nay demand) is to hear that when authority get it wrong, they apologise, revoke that they applied, learn from their mistake, hold to account those who were the instruments of the mistake and admonish those who have been wronged by these injustices.

There are times when even Governments must bow before the people and the Sovereign and ask for forgiveness. The people have that right. They are not our Masters but our servants and when they stray, should be humble in their acceptance of wrong doing. This is what a free country should hold most close as values.

[SantaClaus]

I think Gordon Brown removed the word "apology" from the English dictionary.

He then went on to bastardise the word "fairness" beyond all meaning.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

If you're going to do anything retrospectively, the first principle to be observed is that nothing you applied before was inept or found wanting.

This is one of the paradoxes of retrospective legislation, in that you can't undo past actions which conflict with the new law eg. cases settled, letters sent, documents published.

In HMRC's case, they left such a heavy trail between 2001 and 2008, that retrospectively changing their position was never going to be credible.

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

Paranoia and tax

So here I was thinking that maybe there's a few thousand folk good and true who have it wrong.

So I gazed at my naval a while (Googled a bit), had a sherry then thought:

Hansard commentary shows that numerous MP's had grave concerns about the retrospection of BN66

The JCHR are rather bothered by it to put it mildly

The CIOT think the retrospection is all wrong

HMRC even thought that the scheme was lawful in 2002

HMRC never proved the scheme did not work around the period where they sold the Freehold of their property to an offshore business

And then I found this.

http://www.accountancyage.com/accoun...stands-4871639

So it all makes sense now. We don't appear to have tax planning, avoidance or even evasion. We have... avoision!

I do like the extract about Parliament though...

"However, Chas Roy-Chowdhury, ACCA’s head of taxation, didn’t think HMRC’s tone has changed “from before the downturn”, saying HMRC had “just taken a new angle [in their definition of avoidance] in deciding what Parliament would have intended.

“But [that could be] pretty dangerous because nobody can really know what Parliament intended."

Amen to that brother.

So there we have it. Many respected bodies, people, MP's and us all seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet. Yet via means that appear to have been conceived in iniquity, nurtured in Hell and born unto a Parliament besotted by the "new infant" unaware of the transgressions that made its vile existence so, we are just one 6 short of "The Beast".

Judge, if you are reading this, I hope you see the juxtopositions in all of this. We appear to have all become the servants of our servants and the "Masters" may perhaps be those who move in the shadows, faceless, nameless and without compunction to render themselves unto the people so that they be held to account. The Kings New Clothes comes to mind. Yet I think only a handfull of people preach this but for now, too many others are playing along with this deceit.

Once we can all [Parliament, Courts, respected tax bodies and the public] "see through" this to use an HMRC uephemism, then we can put this behind us and start to build a framework of genuine transparency on both sides of the fence. If not just for us today, here and now, in the moment, then for our children and our childrens children so that the Democracy which is at the heart of this nation thrives rather than withers and transparency in all our matters is sacrosanct in they eyes of the Law for the removal of doubt so that we may then be ruled by those who are good and true rather than bad and false.

I believe we are at the juncture of that choice, here and now.