Rousseau International - any opinions?

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Is that not obvious!? And I do believe thuis has been covered in other threads but for clarity....

EBT you had to be an Employee which is now covered by December 2010 legislation and CBT you have to be self employed which was not covered off in the December 2010 legislation. Ultimately the same mechanisim different employement status. It's anyones guess why HMRC did not cover this off.

That's my point - to all intents and purposes it is the same scheme. Why HMR&C haven't knocked it on the head - no idea - but they are not known for their speediness are they? I am sure they'll get round to it probably with the addition of retrospection based on the idea that people should have known it was a bad idea after they legislated against EBTs

[ASB]

Is that not obvious!? And I do believe thuis has been covered in other threads but for clarity....

EBT you had to be an Employee which is now covered by December 2010 legislation and CBT you have to be self employed which was not covered off in the December 2010 legislation. Ultimately the same mechanisim different employement status. It's anyones guess why HMRC did not cover this off.

I imagine their first line of attack would possibly be related to employment status.

Actually being self employed is a very different thing to claiming to be self employed and is of course governed by a full employment status check. I struggle to see the relationship being one of actual self employment from how I have seen it described.

But, GAAR when it comes may well have it covered and whether or not it is covered by the recent changes is yet to be properly established.

I'm not saying it doesn't work or won't pass muster, just that there is a large amount of risk.

The judiciary seems at the moment to look at these things in a very unfavourable light, remembering a lot of the law is interpretive then this doesn't bode well.

Look for example at the recent NI decision in the IOM where an IOM employer with no UK presence has been found liable for secondary (employers) NI contributions. A very wide meaning of terms is being taken in judicial decisions.

This case also puts much more risk on the IOM (or wherever) provider. I think it is fair to assume they will be looking to mitigate that in some way, likely further increasing risk to scheme users.

[iandres]

So, as far as I understand, this is a risky scheme, that maybe could be working fine now, but probably in next months(april 2013?) the HRMC will look into it and is "declared" as ilegal, so, what would be the consequences for the contractor(me), taking in account that this scheme is based in a LLP? I've no knowledge about accountancy but I thought that with a LLP you have not liability and if, at some point, the HRMC declares your scheme as avoidance, or whatever term that they use, your accountant could shut down the LLP and ... could be a way to claim me any responsibility?

Well, anyway, I don't wanna go down that road, I prefer be sure that everything is legal, so, is there a way to cover my back? I mean, Rousseau is gonna be in between the HRCM and me managing my/our LLP, so, would be there a way to be sure that Rousseau is working properly with the HRCM?(paying the LLP taxes, etc) or could I claim to Rousseau some kind of papers, receipts, etc to be sure that they are doing everything legal and aren't putting me in risk?.

Regards