BN66 - Round 2 (Court of Appeal)

[poppy01]

£50 was put on the counter and was the property of the tourist.

At the end, the hotel proprietor took £50 takings from the till and put it in his pocket. He did so without paying any tax on it.

He then put it on the counter. The tourist walked off with the £50.

The hotel proprietor lost £50. Plus he has tax to pay on his £50 drawings. He is worse than £50 off.

Also, all the others in the chain have tax to pay on their £50 transactions too, which they may now do since they feel less in debt than they did.

Net result, the town is out of debt to each other but the Treasury is something like 6 x 20% to 40% of £50 = £90 better off in tax receipts. If they are all small business using the "pay your VAT when you are paid" scheme then they have about £52.50 VAT to pay between them, too.

no he didnt. no money came from the til. the 50 the tourist walked away with was the 50 he walked in with. wtf

[Paddy]

[QUOTE=moira under the stairs;1103469]Passed on for interesting reading.....

It's a slow day in a little Scottish town. The sun is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich tourist from down south is driving through town. He stops at the motel and lays a £50 note on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

As soon as the man walks upstairs, the owner grabs the note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the £50 and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the £50 and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmer's Co-op takes the £50 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.

The hotel proprietor then places the £50 back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the £50 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything.

However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the British Government is conducting business today…………….[/QUOTE]

Except that the hooker is Polish and sends the £25 back to Poland and still owes the hotel keeper £25.

[seadog]

Toocan,

This is interesting. As I posted a while back the then Secretary-General of the OECD Donald Johnston, that Parker referred to at the JR also stated:

"Tax evasion is easy: it involves breaking the law. By tax avoidance OECD means unacceptable avoidance ... This can be contrasted with acceptable tax planning. What is critical is transparency."

So we have the OECD and Hartnett both referring to the same agreed position that confirms the scheme is indeed tax planning.

Surely, this fact substantiated by the OECD and Hartnett gives rise to a question that needs to be raised whether in Court or direct to HMRC via a complaint of this case since:

MontP claimed it was legitimate tax planning
OECD accept transparency as tax planning
Hartnett accepts lack of secrecy is tax planning

I don't think this leaves much to "clarify".

I hope that all this is being picked up by the legal team becuase it all helps to prove our case that Parker was wrong in his summary of the JR.

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

Witness Testimony??

Folks, if you're at a loose end tonight and want a right cracking read go have a look at this:

http://www.icaew.com/index.cfm/route...lty__ICAEW/pdf

It's Uncle Dave talking at The Hardman Lecture in Nov 2009 about "Transparency And Trust" in Tax (or as I prefer to say - TAT!). Once you get over the rather socialist references he keeps making about the "brothers and sisters in tax" and read it carefully, you find something that is a parallel universe to which we via MontP are living in.

The crux of the diatribe is that transparency and trust in tax go hand in hand and one cannot exist without the other. The need for transparency from the tax payer and tax advisors should be returned with trust from the tax authorities blah blah blah.

I especially like this extract on page 20 from "Uncle Dave":

"Transparency is the key to ensuring that everyone pays their fair share and HMRC will be doing everything it reasonably can to drive out that transparency while at the same time improving trust in the tax system. And that is why HMRC is working so hard to break down tax secrecy in havens..."

OK, stop, take a deep breath and re-read that again. "Transparency is the key to ensuring that everyone pays their fair share..."

Hmmm. I know what you're thinking. Without wanting to seem repetitive, the scheme was always TRANSPARENT and therefore was key to ensuring "fair share" according to Uncle Dave. Oh dear. Parker, HMRC et al have been banging on about the scheme and fair share ever since BN66 kicked off. Yet more than a year after BN66 crash landed on our world, Uncle Dave seems happy to press the key role of transparency towards paying your fair share. I remember a film called Catch 22. A case for a remake called Catch 66 seems appropriate.

Now I would normally stop at this point having just proved that Uncle Dave agrees with MontP on transparency, but this time I need to go further.

Poor Mr Huitson should, according to Parker and HMRC have been aware that retrospective action could have been taken. Well, Uncle Dave, you've dropped a rather large and ugly clanger on this claim. When Mr Huitson joined the scheme, he should not have expected retrospective legislation as Uncle Dave confirms.

Please let me quote from page 8 from Uncle Dave with reference to the 'last few years'

"A rapidly marketed tax avoidance scheme which may have taken £1.5 billion out of the Exchequer in less than a month. How did the tax administration learn about it? Why, by being told about it when the blueprint was delivered to the Inland Revenue by an apparently well-meaning citizen. What in truth was happening, was that the creator of the scheme was relying on the government following its then practice of not legislating retrospectively but being prepared to shut down schemes prospectively by announcing legislation in a Press Notice. Why do that? To prevent other advisers making money from the scheme. Hardly a demonstration of transparency or trust."

Ok, so in Nov 2009 Uncle Dave refers to what has been happening over the 'last few years'. The emphasis is mine. But I think you see what I'm getting at. Parker commented as had HMRC that retrospection was something to consider. Well mate, not according to you. "Its then practice of not legislating retrospectively". Oh dear. Another own goal.

So now 2 nil down a brief summary of the match.

Uncle Dave states that transparency is the key to paying your fair share.
Transparency has always been applied by the scheme users but are challenged about paying their fair share.
We were told at the JR and by HMRC to expect that retrospection could be applied.
Uncle Dave claims in 2009 that the behaviour of 'the last few years' was for government not to legislate retrospectively. Poor Mr Huitson. He was totally transparent and yet was not paying his fair share and should have understood the possibility of retrospection although Uncle Dave says the complete opposite.

But, as always, I like to save the best to the last. Page 26, Uncle Dave says:

"Finally, HMRC plans to establish an annual award – I am afraid it won’t be very valuable – for the individual or group - whether in public or private sector - that makes the biggest contribution to transparency and trust in UK tax administration."

OK, I vote for Montpelier! I wonder if the award is tax deductable???

[RichardCranium]

I know this is but ...

no he didnt. no money came from the til. the 50 the tourist walked away with was the 50 he walked in with. wtf

The prostitute paid her £50 hotel bill. So the £50 went in the hotel till. For the hotel owner to put it on the counter he must withdraw it from HotelCo's profits.

Mind you, he paid the butcher from that £50 so he can put in a £50 expenses claim to HotelCo.

Although the tourist walked away with the same £50 note, it was not the same £50. The £50 he put down had been stolen. Fortunately for him, that was substitued by £50 taken from the hotel till.

That it has the same serial number was co-incidence.

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

I know this is but ...The prostitute paid her £50 hotel bill. So the £50 went in the hotel till. For the hotel owner to put it on the counter he must withdraw it from HotelCo's profits.

Mind you, he paid the butcher from that £50 so he can put in a £50 expenses claim to HotelCo.

Although the tourist walked away with the same £50 note, it was not the same £50. The £50 he put down had been stolen. Fortunately for him, that was substitued by £50 taken from the hotel till.

That it has the same serial number was co-incidence.

Folks, go read up on the "Goldsmiths" to understand this banking "trick". You'll see that like the shadow banking sector, hedge funds and insurance, it's about the chance that all or most who deposit money will or will not want it back (or claimed) at the same time. That's why a run on a bank of any size simply cannot be allowed to happen. It's a house of cards. Also if you want to understand this further read into M1, M2 and M3 money. There's more (much more) out there than exists as money (also known as debt).

[OnYourBikeGB]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7068820.ece

Get around the law? Around the intention of Parliament? Oh Patricia, Jacqui and Mandy, how two-faced are you? That's where we went wrong, we shouldn't have bothered with the legal process at all, just slipped them a few grand. The sooner these lot get flushed down the toilet the with the rest of the turds, the better. Sickening.

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7068820.ece

Get around the law? Around the intention of Parliament? Oh Patricia, Jacqui and Mandy, how two-faced are you? That's where we went wrong, we shouldn't have bothered with the legal process at all, just slipped them a few grand. The sooner these lot get flushed down the toilet the with the rest of the turds, the better. Sickening.

Sickening is to think that around a third of the public might vote Labour. It's like turkeys voting for Christmas! But it's more akin to vegetablists thinking that you don't need meat on your plate - but that's like saying you only need to speak using consonants. But without vowels, you make no sense at all. Welcome to the consonant HMRC and government.

[Emigre]

But, as always, I like to save the best to the last. Page 26, Uncle Dave says:

"Finally, HMRC plans to establish an annual award – I am afraid it won’t be very valuable – for the individual or group - whether in public or private sector - that makes the biggest contribution to transparency and trust in UK tax administration."

OK, I vote for Montpelier! I wonder if the award is tax deductable???

A small point but isn't HMRC the sole tax administrator in this country? Isn't that their job?

I assume this award is retrospective? Quite difficult to make it prospective and pre-determine who is going to win - oh, wait a minute, now I understand, they do already know who is going to win. It has to be HMRC since they are the only tax administrators.

[PlaneSailing]

Hmrc>hmt

Folks, if you're at a loose end tonight and want a right cracking read go have a look at this:

http://www.icaew.com/index.cfm/route...lty__ICAEW/pdf

...
Now I would normally stop at this point having just proved that Uncle Dave agrees with MontP on transparency, but this time I need to go further.

Poor Mr Huitson should, according to Parker and HMRC have been aware that retrospective action could have been taken. Well, Uncle Dave, you've dropped a rather large and ugly clanger on this claim. When Mr Huitson joined the scheme, he should not have expected retrospective legislation as Uncle Dave confirms.

Please let me quote from page 8 from Uncle Dave with reference to the 'last few years'

"A rapidly marketed tax avoidance scheme which may have taken £1.5 billion out of the Exchequer in less than a month. How did the tax administration learn about it? Why, by being told about it when the blueprint was delivered to the Inland Revenue by an apparently well-meaning citizen. What in truth was happening, was that the creator of the scheme was relying on the government following its then practice of not legislating retrospectively but being prepared to shut down schemes prospectively by announcing legislation in a Press Notice. Why do that? To prevent other advisers making money from the scheme. Hardly a demonstration of transparency or trust."

Ok, so in Nov 2009 Uncle Dave refers to what has been happening over the 'last few years'. The emphasis is mine. But I think you see what I'm getting at. Parker commented as had HMRC that retrospection was something to consider. Well mate, not according to you. "Its then practice of not legislating retrospectively". Oh dear. Another own goal.

....

Hang on, this is more troubling than ever. Is Dave saying
that it is now policy of HMRC to shut schemes down retrospectively?

Who passed that piece of legislation? Even Lurch claims it
is to be used sparingly. Talk about stepping beyond your
boundaries.