BN66 - Round 2 (Court of Appeal)

[RingStinger]

I'm trying to take the view that no news is good news.

If the forecast elapsed time of 6 weeks for an answer has stretched to 6 months, the old boys must be thinking about something....

If they did indeed say that a result can be expected by Christmas, they would've said this knowing their current workload and estimates. Its not as if a sh1t load of unexpected court cases just landed on their desks...

[johnnyguitar]

can't Montpelier make some enquiries ? - to find out a new expected date. Not unreasonable given that they gave us a Christmas date originally.

[johnnyguitar]

I'm trying to take the view that no news is good news.

If the forecast elapsed time of 6 weeks for an answer has stretched to 6 months, the old boys must be thinking about something....

If they did indeed say that a result can be expected by Christmas, they would've said this knowing their current workload and estimates. Its not as if a sh1t load of unexpected court cases just landed on their desks...

I kind of see it the other way. Everyone I speak to feels 100% that the restrospection is wrong. That should be an easy judgement to make - it was legal. Restrospection is not allowed.
What would be harder, and what could be taking all this time, is to uphold HMRCs view in our case but somehow limit it so that the floodgates of retrospection across the board don't open.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

can't Montpelier make some enquiries ? - to find out a new expected date. Not unreasonable given that they gave us a Christmas date originally.

They have, and they've been told by the courts office to be patient and stop pestering. The judges will deliver when they're good and ready.

[RingStinger]

I kind of see it the other way. Everyone I speak to feels 100% that the restrospection is wrong. That should be an easy judgement to make - it was legal. Restrospection is not allowed.
What would be harder, and what could be taking all this time, is to uphold HMRCs view in our case but somehow limit it so that the floodgates of retrospection across the board don't open.

I take your point. But I hope you're wrong.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

What would be harder, and what could be taking all this time, is to uphold HMRCs view in our case but somehow limit it so that the floodgates of retrospection across the board don't open.

I have given this a lot of thought over the past couple of years. ie. is there a way to frame a judgment in such a way that retrospection was OK in our case but not other instances of tax avoidance?

I can't see how they can square this circle, other than by saying it is at the discretion of Parliament to decide. In other words, it is totally arbitrary.

It is not enough to say that the DTA was clear public policy, since every form of tax avoidance is contrary to public policy and exploits loopholes in the tax code. What makes the DTA so special?

If this is the route they do go down then it will be interesting to see how on earth they justify our scheme being singled out in this way.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

IANAL but I cannot see how they could possibly pass down a judgement that would have no bearing on future cases - at the very least a precedent would be set and could therefore be referred to in any future deliberations regarding tax avoidance. If they were to make an example in this case the same reasoning could and presumably would be applied in future cases; if this was made impossible then I would have thought you would have instant grounds for appeal.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

IANAL but I cannot see how they could possibly pass down a judgement that would have no bearing on future cases - at the very least a precedent would be set and could therefore be referred to in any future deliberations regarding tax avoidance. If they were to make an example in this case the same reasoning could and presumably would be applied in future cases; if this was made impossible then I would have thought you would have instant grounds for appeal.

That's my reasoning too.

If BN66 is allowed to stand then it's inconceivable that HMRC would not use it as a precedent in future. Maybe not under the current administration but certainly if Labour got in again.

Morally speaking, some might argue that this would be a good thing but the Judges should be in no doubt about the ramifications of allowing the High Court judgment to stand.

Basically it would be a green light for the legislature to use retrospection, going back many years, whenever they saw fit.

[TykeMerc]

That's my reasoning too.

If BN66 is allowed to stand then it's inconceivable that HMRC would not use it as a precedent in future. Maybe not under the current administration but certainly if Labour got in again.

Morally speaking, some might argue that this would be a good thing but the Judges should be in no doubt about the ramifications of allowing the High Court judgment to stand.

Basically it would be a green light for the legislature to use retrospection, going back many years, whenever they saw fit.

Absolutely! This is why I've supported your cause despite not personally agreeing with the tax strategy you folks employed. Retrospection is indefensible and offensive, if a piece of legislation leaves a loophole then they should fix that and not take the mick like they have.

[ContractIn]

length of time on judgement

The way I am interpreting it (and I may be extremely naive) is that if they were to find in favour of HMRC, as did parker, then judgement would have been delivered by now.

Why would they have to worry about this being set in precedent? Didn't parker do this? (again I could be naive)