BN66 - Round 2 (Court of Appeal)

[centurian]

BBC News - Paul Hogan to sue Australia government

"Insufficient prospects of securing convictions" doesn't mean he didn't do it, just that they can't meet the (very high) standard of proof required for a criminal case.

However, they may have more than enough "balance of probabilities" required to defend a criminal case - or still pursue him for the cash, which they are doing.

He's not going to win the civil case - and he knows it. He's suing to try and give him a bargaining chip and try and get Aus-HMRC to stop chasing him for the cash.

[WhiteCat]

2004 warning on retrospectivity ?

The government indicated in 2004 that such changes may be retrospective.

I was quite unaware that they had said any such thing at any time before the 2008 Budget and presume I'm not alone. Had anyone else seen this warning ? If so, how ?

[screwthis]

I was quite unaware that they had said any such thing at any time before the 2008 Budget and presume I'm not alone. Had anyone else seen this warning ? If so, how ?

This warning was made in 2009, retrospectively applied to 2004.

This is like Back to the Future...am imagining Micheal J Fox holding up a bank statement from 2011 with £150,000 slowly fading out

[Emigre]

Retrospection vs Retroaction vs Legitimate expectation

just read this:


Tax bodies flag risks of undertaking ‘artificial’ tax avoidance

Date:
05 January 2011
Author(s):
Andrew Goodall

The leading tax bodies have updated their joint guidance for tax advisers on professional conduct in relation to taxation. It was last updated in 2006, and the latest version has been the subject of discussion since 2007.

It includes guidance on completion of tax returns; access to data by HMRC and other authorities; irregularities including errors; HMRC rulings; and tax avoidance.

The guidance on tax avoidance is largely unchanged. While it points out that avoidance is legal, and all taxpayers ‘have the right to arrange their affairs under the law to minimise their liability to tax’, it also advises members to consider carefully, and in the light of the client’s wider interests, the ‘risks and merits’ of arrangements that the tax authorities may view as artificial.

A new section advises that members should ‘ensure that clients are fully aware of the risks of undertaking transactions that HMRC may regard as “unacceptable” and that such transactions may be subject to litigation or possible changes in law’. The government indicated in 2004 that such changes may be retrospective.'Professional Conduct in relation to Taxation' has been issued by the Chartered Institute of Taxation, the Association of Taxation Technicians, the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, the Institute of Indirect Taxation and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.



So if the government warned in 2004 about being retrospective then how could we expect that when the scheme started in 2001?

Thanks for the information. The highlighted sentence is unhelpful in its lack of detail. However, I would be very surprised if this does not relate to the Dawn Primarolo (then Paymaster General) statement in December 2004 that firstly related specifically to PAYE schemes (ie employment) and secondly the nature of the retrospection was more one of retroaction. ie they announce today that a scheme will be closed down with effect from today, but legally can only be closed once the legislation is in place. At the date of passing of that legislation the wef date will make it appear retrospective. The significant point here is that you would have known that it was going to be close down and hence there would be no infringement of legitimate expectation. As an example none of us have any compalint about the closing of the DTA scheme wef 12 March 2008 with Royal Assent only granted on 23 July 2008. Our complaint is there was no forewarning prior to then that it would be backdated to 1987.

A message to any Hector stooges. Even Parker did not accept that Padmore provided the warning.

I think you'll agree, our case is more than a little bit different!

[moira under the stairs]

Good on Paul Hogan!

When we win this in Europe (forget the kangaroo British courts), lets sue the pants off HMRC and the British govt.

Santa,

Thats something I posted in the other voting thread sometime ago each of us should go suing the governmet for £2M.

[seadog]

just read this:



So if the government warned in 2004 about being retrospective then how could we expect that when the scheme started in 2001?

Dawn Primarolla made that original statement in 2004 and it referred only to employment loopholes, but this was used by Jane Kennedy in trying to justify the retrospective element of S58 whcih was a much wider than jsut employmetn and as you say goes back not only to 2004 but actually to 2001.

This is just another example of how parliament was misled.

[StellaFan]

Santa,

Thats something I posted in the other voting thread sometime ago each of us should go suing the governmet for £2M.

£200m surely?

[Toocan]

Dawn Primarolla made that original statement in 2004 and it referred only to employment loopholes, but this was used by Jane Kennedy in trying to justify the retrospective element of S58 whcih was a much wider than jsut employmetn and as you say goes back not only to 2004 but actually to 2001.

This is just another example of how parliament was misled.

Actually, I don't think Dawn referred to the 2004 statement at all - it did not cover this scheme. Later FoI requests suggest that she was referring to the Padmore legislation which not even Judge Parker accepted as a warning.

That's a little more than "misled" in my book .... there is an open prison with places for MP's who have lied....

[Potius sero quam numquam]

No time like the present

It is 12 months since the Hight Court defeat.

It is 2 years and 6 months since s.58 became law.

It will be 3 years in March since BN66 was first announced.

Hopefully people have put this time to good use, making contingency plans etc.

If not, and in the words of the French novelist Antoine de Saint-Exupery...

It's never too late to do something.

[TheBarCapBoyz]

Closure Notice Received

Her Majesty's Ridiculous Cretins finally sent us our closure notice. Mrs Boyz had a good old chuckle as it was posted second class on December 22nd, cunningly timed -with the bad weather and the holidays - to leave us with the minimum amount of time to appeal, in our case less than two weeks. Very funny mate. Clearly some twat in Middlesbrough has a small cock and was abused as a child.

Stuff is being sent off to NW this morning. What a waste of everyone's time.

Does anyone know how we can get some kind of confirmation that the Revenue have the appeal on their system and won't send the debt collectors round as has happened to one or two unfortunate souls?

Funnily enough, the amount - £46k - was a bit less than excpected, and they only demanded £30k of it up front. Not sure why.