BN66 - Court of Appeal and beyond

[BrilloPad]

The letter is going out tomorrow.

BUT do not get excited. It is just an interim holding position. They are still consulting with Counsel and other parties.

Yes this could have been sent 2 weeks ago but I suggest we get over it and move on.

Do they give a timescale for when they might have a full response?

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

Hey All,

Cant sleep now 12:14am....

So someone tell me what the options are now....is there more to go with MP...or is that it? (sorry i havent been following for a while)

I also love the letter from HMRC..."Pay now"..... would be nice if they told us how much they think is owed? or is there a way of seeing that?

HMRC suggesting you make payment on account, pay in full, pay what you can is standard operating procedure. It is your choice to follow that suggestion and nothing more.

The JR dealt only with the application of S58 in terms of HR. Remember, the HC did not say the Scheme did not work. That legal process dealt with the specifics of HR application ONLY.

In any event, all CN's are appealed and must be dealt with by due process. Whilst the appeal is open, other than their nice letters suggesting you pay something, they cannot enforce collection of the amounts under appeal.

The letter from Brannigan gave little away other than to state that they would be in touch with MP to deal with the appeals of CN's. I take that as the law stands to mean the 1st Tier Tax Tribunal to process the appeal accordingly. Of course as Mr. B says, you can pay up in the meantime, reduce interest exposure and the like. But your CN's are still under appeal. So don't start to panic that you're about to be made bankrupt in time for Easter.

I suspect that HMRC's bland letter may be reciprocated by the initial response from MP. After all, HMRC have simply stated that they will be finalising open and appealed CN's and there is a process for that. So a space of vacuum will exist IMO for the time being.

MP have one thing in common with HMRC on this case, they don't always say too much in their correspondance. But I don't hear anyone suggesting that means HMRC are doing zip.

So the way forward is dealing with CN's which will take some months I suspect yet I'm sure HMRC will keep you informed and offer various payment ideas (not the same as a deal I should say).

The JR route was one of the jelly to a wall approach (soft law as I know has been referred to here by others). The TC route is a bit more of a roll your sleeves up and get into the meat of the law.

Yes I know, the law is the law. S58 is law and is retrospective. Perhaps it will apply and we all get hit with tax demands and the world for many can end and the rest of the well trodden path needs no further comment.

So why even go through to the TC? Well for one, we have appeals that need finalising and this is the right place to do it and even HMRC will appreciate that. But what at that point? Is it just a formality to end the appeal and let HMRC send demands? Well if that was true then why call it the 1st Tier Tax Tribunal? But one thing is for sure, the tax code got to more than 10,000 pages under Labour. Pretty complex stuff that I don't think Einstien could fathom. Doesn't make it applicable though. We'll see.

[Ganimos]

DR totally utterly couldnt agree more. What we dont need is a knee jerk reaction at this stage from MP purely in the interests of satisfying nerves. I want them to take their time and consider their strategy and maybe have some kind of framework in place with HMRC to progrees this to its conclusion. Its pretty bloody obvious (to me anyway) thats what theyre doing and I dont need a letter stating as such.

I agree. After all these years....a few more weeks or a month or so won't make much difference. The important thing is MP get the next stage right !! It calls for strong nerves !

"He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper"
Edmund Burke

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

I agree. After all these years....a few more weeks or a month or so won't make much difference. The important thing is MP get the next stage right !! It calls for strong nerves !

"He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper"
Edmund Burke

Wierd thing is, when looking at examples of time lag to be heard at the Tax Tribunal from now versus when we might have expected to be heard before the SC, they could have been in the same timeframe. Just a question of which one you'd prefer to be in front of in that respect - The vagueness of HR or the hard tacks of the TT. Well, we knew even before the SC statement, that the HR route was going, well, less than swimmingly. So one way or another, a loss at the TT in a bare knuckle fight would seem a little more "fair" than ruling on who can hug a tree more convincingly IMO. But of course that assumes a loss. But a win in a toe-to-toe match...

Early days and I for one have no expectations. I'm not going to predict the future. But for what it's worth, the Tax Tribunal cannot look at ECHR according to the LJ's that dealt with the original PwC submission. Given our history with that, I'd say that's a result in itself!

[robinhood]

Tax Tribunal

I would guess that a 1st Tier Tribunal will categorise us within the "Complex Track" category and refer the case to the Upper Tribunal

- "For a case to be considered suitable for the Complex Track, it must require lengthy or complex evidence, involve an important principle in law or complex issue or involve a large financial sum"

[SantaClaus]

Wierd thing is, when looking at examples of time lag to be heard at the Tax Tribunal from now versus when we might have expected to be heard before the SC, they could have been in the same timeframe. Just a question of which one you'd prefer to be in front of in that respect - The vagueness of HR or the hard tacks of the TT. Well, we knew even before the SC statement, that the HR route was going, well, less than swimmingly. So one way or another, a loss at the TT in a bare knuckle fight would seem a little more "fair" than ruling on who can hug a tree more convincingly IMO. But of course that assumes a loss. But a win in a toe-to-toe match...

Early days and I for one have no expectations. I'm not going to predict the future. But for what it's worth, the Tax Tribunal cannot look at ECHR according to the LJ's that dealt with the original PwC submission. Given our history with that, I'd say that's a result in itself!

Completely agree. The reason we lost in the courts was due to our technical arguments being brushed aside, and the judges looking at the tree hugging woolly stuff. HMRC's Singh excelled himself as a Human Rights lawyer by retrospectively removing our own human rights.

The tax tribunal is different (although arguably no less corrupt). This time only technical arguments will be debated, and that puts the ball more in our court.

[Emigre]

Am I missing something simple?

How is this any different from the point at which we were going to take cases to the tax courts prior to the retro?

In other words if the Rev thought they weren't going to win at a technical argument back then why would they be any more confident of winning now?
That would seem like s58 afforded them nothing apart from delaying 5 years to get to the same point they were at and tried to avoid back then.

It will deinitely not be the same as it might have been before. Very simply HMRC will turn up at the Tribunal and say S58 is now law, and it clarifyingly puts beyond doubt something that has always had effect etc. They could not have said that when the 4 cases were originally listed.

There are still plenty of angles to play. What their chances of success are who knows at this stage. For example, Singh QC committed HMRC to not enforcing collection whilst it was in the Court system. If I remember rightly, he was not specific about that being the UK Courts. If MP take this to the ECHR we could argue that it is still in the system and defer collection for longer.

Further, other posters here have highlighted the entrapment angle by HMRC, and the misleading advice (even Parker stated that Archer Shee v Baker aided our case yet was used by HMRC as a reason for the scheme not working). Also, their regular advice to make payments on account in case it goes wrong. I imagine once enough had been paid for one year they would close it so it couldn't be claimed back if/when we finally get justice. Simply deceitful.

The original 4 cases were not closed prior to S58. In short we had been asked and awaiting the outcome of those test cases. We are still waiting. It cannot be right that the substance of those cases suddenly got changed. It would be a bit like the Police charging someone with theft, remanding them in custody, realising they don't have a case, so changing the charge to theft of prison food.

I'm sure we can come up with plenty more.

I have never had a lower opinion of the establishment than i have today. They are fundamentally unprincipled and dishonest. Extraordinary what Gauke will say in Opposition but point blank refuse to respond to once in Office.

[smalldog]

Who sits on the TT's please dont tell me its a load of HMRC bods?

[StellaFan]

Who sits on the TT's please dont tell me its a load of HMRC bods?

Mr B, Mrs B, Mr B's neighbour

[Emigre]

Mr B, Mrs B, Mr B's neighbour

And there's Mr and Mrs H (Mr Corporate dinner), there's probably a Davis and a MacDougall somewhere. And the Committee is finished off with Timms and Kennedy. Gauke didn't make it he couldn't make up his mind which coloured underwear to put on that day.