BN66 - Round 2 (Court of Appeal)

[SantaClaus]

A fact not lost on many people I think. Even Parker acknowledges there is a compelling argument. Pity, he parked it (excuse the pun) in favour of tree hugging.

Yet, this very point keeps getting ducked by those who say the scheme does not work. Except for the savvy bloke in HMRC whow wrote TE63. See a pattern here? So let's hope the matter gets back to the facts and written law soon as I don't want to be judged on the result of nailing jelly to a wall and seeing if it sticks! Roll on CoA. Hope they don't like jelly.

I've got this image of Parker hugging a tree in my mind now!

Maybe we could setup a satirical website with suitable cartoons. Anyone a good artist?

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

I've got this image of Parker hugging a tree in my mind now!

Maybe we could setup a satirical website with suitable cartoons. Anyone a good artist?

It's already out there Santa. It's called www.hmrc.gov.uk and there's plenty of p*ss artists already putting some hilarious content on it!!

[SantaClaus]

It's already out there Santa. It's called www.hmrc.gov.uk and there's plenty of p*ss artists already putting some hilarious content on it!!

The sad thing is we are paying them to do it

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

Worth a read

An HMRC Impact Assessment (IA) into the ammendment to anti-avoidance disclosure rules in FA 2008.

http://www.ialibrary.berr.gov.uk/upl...ge)(Final).doc

Note the part on Policy Objectives:

2. getting information about who has used a scheme - informing HMRC’s compliance activities (risk assessment, enquiries into returns and challenge by litigation).

Hmm, there's that word litigation again. Still can't recall that ever being used in our case.

Also like this quote about the various options to improve the effectiveness of the Disclosure Regime:

What policy options have been considered? Please justify any preferred option.
1. No intervention
2. Non legislative option; e.g education campaign targeted at users
3. Replace the SRN system with a new legislative system (replacement)
4. Legislation to remove the weaknesses and impose obligations on promoters and others to pass on SRNs and other information to users (repair).
Option 4 will be taken forward as the preferred option. Options 1 and 2 (in isolation) would not have cured the problem. Option 3 would have been totally disproportionate to the problem being addressed.

You can say that again. A Legislative response to an issue of disclosure being disproportionate?

So in 2008 HMRC still have problems with anti-avoidance identification and dealing with it, 4 years after the Disclosure Regime came into affect and 8 years after they already knew about the Scheme, long before Disclosure and SRN's had been even dreamed up. And not a single litigation in sight.

Wow!

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

And Another

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ria/ria-tax-avoid-disc.pdf

I particularly like the quote on Page 1:

5. Disclosure is intended to provide HMRC, in as close to real time as possible, with the information necessary to identify and counteract avoidance schemes. This ensures that the Government can initiate legislation as quickly as possible to close any loopholes. Disclosure also normally provides information about the users of schemes that have been disclosed, which assists HMRC to initiate, where appropriate, enquiries and litigation.

Oh come one. Even before this whole disclosure regime came into force, HMRC knew about the scheme in full. They initiated enquiries alright but not a jot on litigation.

And the quote about "legislation as quickly as possible to close any loopholes". You've got to be kidding me. 8 years? I'd love to know how they define slowly then.

If you apply the timelines to us, then this document is pure drivel. And they have the cheek to talk about fair and proportionate!

I can see even more "clearly" why they needed retrospective legislation on this.

[Slobbo]

Other Challengers

How come we haven't heard about these challengers before? How can they challenge it? Didn't they have to get the paperwork in within the 3 months of the legislation coming into affect as we did for the JR?

[DonkeyRhubarb]

How come we haven't heard about these challengers before? How can they challenge it? Didn't they have to get the paperwork in within the 3 months of the legislation coming into affect as we did for the JR?

They may be able to use a CN as a triggering event OR they could just follow the normal Tax Tribunal route (formerly known as the Commissioners).

As I understand it, Montpelier went down the JR route to speed up the process. If they'd have gone to a Tax Tribunal, it would have ended up in the High Court anyway but would have taken a lot longer to get there.

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

They may be able to use a CN as a triggering event OR they could just follow the normal Tax Tribunal route (formerly known as the Commissioners).

As I understand it, Montpelier went down the JR route to speed up the process. If they'd have gone to a Tax Tribunal, it would have ended up in the High Court anyway but would have taken a lot longer to get there.

In any event, when we thought is was just us/MontP against HMRC, things have changed somewhat. Additional big guns have joined the fight and more may come to light. So we're not alone. There could be a momentum building here that may go beyond what HMRC had considered. In turn, it gets more vocal and more public. And given the names coming into it, the CIOT concern over stability of the tax system and the impact of investment grows more pronounced. It could end up becoming all consuming to the point where someone decides to put a stop to it for the sake of tax stability.

I hope that BN66 is one step too far. Let's wait and see.

[SantaClaus]

In any event, when we thought is was just us/MontP against HMRC, things have changed somewhat. Additional big guns have joined the fight and more may come to light. So we're not alone. There could be a momentum building here that may go beyond what HMRC had considered. In turn, it gets more vocal and more public. And given the names coming into it, the CIOT concern over stability of the tax system and the impact of investment grows more pronounced. It could end up becoming all consuming to the point where someone decides to put a stop to it for the sake of tax stability.

I hope that BN66 is one step too far. Let's wait and see.

Wouldnt it be great if Labour's election chances were seriously damaged because of the bad publicity

[bananarepublic]

Wouldnt it be great if Labour's election chances were seriously damaged because of the bad publicity

It would be great, but if you think joe public gives a monkeys about what has happened to us I think you are very much mistaken. Putting our fate in the hands of the mob would be a very dubious decision!!! I would rather let the courts decide, not the court of public opinion as I know where we stand a better chance.