Originally posted by porrker
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wrt continued use of benefit trusts, I'm not sure that I would start using one now. However, there are a number of things that make them tough to turnover right now.
1. Recategorisation of a loan as income would be a major game changer. The amount of tax code required to achieve that without adversely affecting people with loans who are not on such an arrangement would be extensive and complex;
2. Recategorisation of employment basis would be equally difficult;
3. The current debate on retrospection.
I'm sure there are more.
The last Government created this mess with IR35. The cost of enforcement of IR35 to the taxpayer has been massive. Somewhere in the range of 2000 cases have been heard at the tax tribunals with HMRC winning just a handful. With fees of say £50k each side, that comes to the £200m that HMT states they are out of pocket over their inadequacies on the DTA schemes. Contractors potentially hit by IR35 moved to more aggressive schemes so instead of collecting maybe 20% tax they now get say 5%. These arrangements were not in sight of contractors until the uncertainty of IR35.
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