BN66 - JR Judgement Day

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Anyway, I didn't realise the PwC thing was in the Court of Appeal.
I assume they have they gone through the written & oral submission
process to get that far?

No. It's an oral hearing on the 9th March. I am in contact with the claimant in their case and he says PwC have advised the court could do one of four things:

1) Refuse permission for a full hearing
2) Order the case to be heard in the High Court (JR);
3) Hear the case straight away in the court of Appeal;
4) Order the case to go straight to the European Court.

If they do get a JR, I hope they don't get landed with the same Judge as we did!!!

[SantaClaus]

So, if we add HM Treasury to the list Parker will be working nicely towards a clean sweep of Govt departments.

More generally, we should avoid overt criticism of the Judge, he was after all just doing his job, and I know that some will think it was a bad job. Our appeal will highlight areas of misunderstanding and others of judgement perhaps not fully supported by the facts or precedent.

The bottom line is that it would have taken a Denning to have ruled in our favour as a Judge at first instance. The real disappointment for us was the manner in which his judgement was formed ie at a social and political policy level when such an area is beyond his remit. in essence he based his judgement in the clouds and gave short shrift to the facts.

I think Parker will be up for a gong after this!

[SantaClaus]

...
Court of Appeal

If we can get our case in front of the court of appeal, then our chances of getting a more balanced hearing are much greater.

For a start, there will be 3 judges and, unlike Parker, they will be senior judges. If any of them have a history of working for HMRC, then this would have been in the distant past.

Even better will be the ECHR. The ECHR judges will hopefully not care what our sleazy government wants.

[smalldog]

greece

and no doubt our government will pledge money they havent got to give, in support of Greece which will mean HMRC need to introduce even more draconian retrospective tax measures...

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Unilever threatens to leave UK over tax burden

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ing-taxes.html

Another complaint from business leaders is that Gordon Brown's constant tinkering of the tax system makes it difficult to plan ahead.

Diageo hits out at UK tax regime

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8510025.stm

"But if the tax regime becomes so egregious, either for corporates or individuals we would have no option but to look at alternatives,"

PS. never mind planning ahead. You now need to plan backwards!!!!!!

[poppy01]

MP still in business

Interesting email received by a colleague of mine and forwarded to me :-

'Thank you for your e-mail.

Yes, there has been a lot of rather unfortunate press surrounding the recent court case. What the journalists do not mention however is that the case is far from over, and we are taking the case to the Court of Appeal (in fact the case was rejected purely because the Judge was not in a position to rule on public or social policy, and in fact, he agreed with our case and our interpretation of various aspects of the double taxation agreement). Another thing that isn’t mentioned is that both KPMG and PWC are also taking their respective cases through the courts at the moment too.

Our income tax mitigation solution is not a tax scheme, and as such is not affected by the Huitson case. (Describes the solution)
Do let me know if you would like to hear more about it.'

*** *****
Montpelier Tax Consultants ***

[smalldog]

Diageo

DR I just love the comment from the treasury spokesperson basically saying they are wrong!!! how arrogant....Do they honestly think they would relocate an entire business to a new country without real justification and at a whim? Makes you realise how bad it must be, the cost to relocate would be enormous and the indication is they can recoup that from another country in reduced taxes....shocking!

and if PWC and KPMG lose their cases then watch this space...corporate migration is just beginning

this country just sucks, cheers nu labour...wont be anyone left to tax soon, no high fliers, no businesses, no contractors or freelance workers cos of IR35, just a bunch of benefit claimaints and pensioners...who is gonna pay for em?!

[centurian]

However, in every single case he has represented the establishment.

So why is this being flagged up two weeks after the judgement instead of when he was appointed (appologies if it was).

[normalbloke]

".....the case was rejected purely because the Judge was not in a position to rule on public or social policy....."

I'm confused (easily done). I thought that's exactly what the Judge did rule on... social policy... ie we hadn't paid the mythical "fair share" of tax.

[bananarepublic]

But it does make you wonder...

Don't know about wonder, but I hope that anybody reading this stuff realises that people questioning the impartiality of the judge have a lot riding on the final outcome of the case.

I don't think it is a profitable avenue to explore. I think the judge was mistaken. But biased? Nobody questioned his impartiality when he gave permission for the JR to go ahead. Where would we be now without that decision? So I don't question his impartiality.

Obviously the judgement was disappointing, but where would we be now if we had won? The judgement would still be under appeal. Even if we lose eventually, the judgement has served as a wake up call to people to prepare themselves for the worst. Perhaps in doing so at this stage he has even saved people from going bankrupt or losing their houses.

How many cases have been lost at this stage but won eventually. A fair few I would say. Remember Arctic Systems?

We've had our day in court and because of the judgement no doubt we will have more. We should be thankful at least for that.