BN66 - Court of Appeal and beyond

[Buzby]

So what, then, was the provenance of this extraordinary piece of fiction?

"At no time did HMRC indicate to affected taxpayers, including the claimant, that they could safely rely upon the arrangements. On the contrary HMRC consistently maintained that the arrangements did not work, and advised taxpayers to pay on account the income tax which HMRC said was properly due. Any prudent taxpayer who followed that advice would not now be prejudiced by the retrospective effect of the legislation."
J. Parker.

So HMRC have misled Parliament in 2008 with section 58, then misled court with the above statement and now continue to misled DG. I am going to write to my MP again to highlight this one issue.

[TalkingCheese]

So what, then, was the provenance of this extraordinary piece of fiction?

"At no time did HMRC indicate to affected taxpayers, including the claimant, that they could safely rely upon the arrangements. On the contrary HMRC consistently maintained that the arrangements did not work, and advised taxpayers to pay on account the income tax which HMRC said was properly due. Any prudent taxpayer who followed that advice would not now be prejudiced by the retrospective effect of the legislation."
J. Parker.

Dont want to cry over spilt milk but should we have picked up on this untruth in the Judicial Review ? or did Parker paraphrase to add "HMRC consistently maintained" ?

[ringodingo]

I have now received copies of enquiry letters - not ALL mention section 9A TMA 1970

Important Clarification

Previously I said an enquiry would be a letter referring to Code of Practice 8. This is not always the case.

The crucial thing to look for is a reference to Section 9A Notice TMA 1970. This is what constitutes a formal notice of enquiry.

If you are in any doubt as to whether you received enquiry notices, I would just send the draft letter above. You have got nothing to lose by asking HMRC for copies of these letters.

I have now received copies of letters informing me HMRC intended enquiring into my returns.

The letters for tax years ending 03 and 04 were both headed Section 9A TMA 1970 Notice.

For tax year ending 07 does mention Section 9A Taxes Management Act 1970.

BUT for tax years ending 05 06 and 08 there is no mention of Section 9A TMA 1970 Notice. They do say "I intend to enquire into this return" and the letter for 08 also states "I note you claimed relief again for 2007-08 . As such, this year will be included as part of HM Revenue & Custom's overall enquiry under this notice"

Have I got a case for asking HMRC to withdraw the corresponding Closure Notices and remove the adjustments from my returns.for tax years ending 05 06 and 08?

[RingStinger]

John Redwood MP

Reply received from John Redwood, MP for Wokingham.

Enclosing Gauke's standard response about my pending financial situation and I had enough warnings about making on account payments, bollox...bollox...bollox...

John Redwood states in his covering letter that he doesn't agree with Gauke and will therefore take up this matter further with him .....

[BrilloPad]

Have I got a case for asking HMRC to withdraw the corresponding Closure Notices and remove the adjustments from my returns.for tax years ending 05 06 and 08?

Obviously you will be forwarding on all letters to montp and they will be the experts. But lets hope you have a watertight case!

[TalkingCheese]

I reckon that:

They do say "I intend to enquire into this return"

is not a formal enquiry and if you dont have anything else I think you have a strong case.

but

I note you claimed relief again for 2007-08 . As such, this year will be included as part of HM Revenue & Custom's overall enquiry under this notice

is probably good enough.

Definitely worth asking for proof of all from them and for them to close enquiries that dont have the appropriate opening.

[TalkingCheese]

Reply received from John Redwood, MP for Wokingham.

Enclosing Gauke's standard response about my pending financial situation and I had enough warnings about making on account payments, bollox...bollox...bollox...

John Redwood states in his covering letter that he doesn't agree with Gauke and will therefore take up this matter further with him .....

This is a great opportunity to give Redwood the first letter you have that states "Hmrc does not accept that the claims are valid" which is probably May 2007 and also the year before (Dec 2006 ?) which probably states "Each year we enquire into some tax returns to check that they are right or because we need further information to understand the figures. We want to make sure you pay the right tax, not too little or too much..." demonstrating that the first proper warning we had that it was not accepted was May 2007. This doesnt detract from the fact that no reason was given, even at this time. That only came in 2008.

[nevergiveup]

Reply received from John Redwood, MP for Wokingham.

Enclosing Gauke's standard response about my pending financial situation and I had enough warnings about making on account payments, bollox...bollox...bollox...

John Redwood states in his covering letter that he doesn't agree with Gauke and will therefore take up this matter further with him .....

Nice one. It sounds like more and more MP's are starting to listen

[OldITGit]

The Word Consistently

So what, then, was the provenance of this extraordinary piece of fiction?

"At no time did HMRC indicate to affected taxpayers, including the claimant, that they could safely rely upon the arrangements. On the contrary HMRC consistently maintained that the arrangements did not work, and advised taxpayers to pay on account the income tax which HMRC said was properly due. Any prudent taxpayer who followed that advice would not now be prejudiced by the retrospective effect of the legislation."
J. Parker.

When HMRC maintained in court that they consistently warned that the scheme did not work and advised people to put money aside, the judge must have assumed that HMRC had warned in all years of the scheme, rather that consistently in 2007!! When seeing our MP and my wife said "HMRC lied in Court" that got the MP's attention and illustrates how the judge was misled.

[Dieselpower]

Gauke's Template response

In every single letter of response, HMRC/Gauke is saying "HMRC made it clear throughout that the scheme didnt work"

This is complete crap and we need to deal with the point immediately and include it in all letters to MPs etc, so that MP's realise that the future response from Gauke (to their letters following a surgery meeting) is already flawed and false.

As can be seen from the forum posts lately (pages 329 onwards), and also in my particular case (and hence I presume in every single case), the very first time HMRC stated that they "did not accept the validity of the scheme" was in May 2007, and in that same letter they said that because they don't accept its validity they intend taking representative cases to the Tax Courts. Bear in mind their first letter of enquiry to me was some 2 yrs earlier (an in many other peoples cases, even earlier than that). Bear in mind also that by way of TN63 they must have known about the scheme in 2002!

Post 2008 they didnt NEED to tell us the scheme didnt work because Section58's retroaction made that obvious to all parties.

So in brief, they only told us on ONE occasion that in their view the scheme was not valid, but in the same breath they said "so we are taking this to the tax courts", something that they simply never followed through with (because they knew that they would lose)

Hence the notion that they "made it clear throughout " is quite frankly an utter lie, designed to appease and mislead MP's into keeping their mouths shut.

I urge everyone who has already written to their MP to follow up with this point. Its easy to prove - we all have a dossier of comms from HMRC, and certainly in my case there is one sole reference to the fact that the scheme didnt work/was invalid. One sole reference does not equal "Throughout"