No To Retro Tax – Campaign Against Section 58 Finance Act 2008

[Toocan]

Which is why I'm following up with a 'huh?, please answer my actual question' letter. It's the veneer of pretending to actually have read our letters is what makes me laugh. I didn't realise there were variations, I thought they were all the same. Were they wording something more carefully I wonder?

I don't think so - it's more a case of trying to make the response fit the letter. However, where people write and do not ask the questions they want you to ask, there is not worthwhile tweaking they can do.

I would guess that they have a library of standard responses and they tweek them accordng to what comes in. A sort of a mean-mincer approach.

They really need to step up to the plate. Can they really think this is going to go away? If they push forward with "final demands" then they will create thousands of very unhappy people. The prospect of having everything they have worked for - honest and hard - taken away. And if they actually push to enforcement, well then there will be thousands of people with nothing left. And nothing left to lose.

[TAF4]

Chuckle.......

Council elections around here next week and our council is fairly marginal between Lib.Dems and Tory. Canvassing and junk mail has been extensive.

Just this morning the doorbell went and my Finance Director (SWMBO) answered the door to find our Tory MP on the doorstep asking for support for the local council Tory candidate. Larf!!! Unfortunately I wasn't home at the time but she blistered his ears!

We haven't had the standard Gauke response from him yet despite it being a month since our last letter to the elusive ***.

He was astounded that the sums due (including interest) were so large and shocked that 3000 families are being victimised as a result of Hector's continuing lies. She gave him both barrels and he scuttled off with promises of a response.


Maybe I'll get the audience I'm after now.

[Disgusted of Coventry]

Face to face meetings with MPs

As many of us are getting replies, via our MPs, from DG and/or GOs saying that HMRC have been telling us that the scheme didn't work and pay up right from the beginning... However, as it is documented in our EXCELLENT website (well done guys) that these are all lies...

So my suggestion is to highlight this on the front page of http://notoretrotax.org.uk so MPs (and other officials) can get that information without doing much work - ie helping them... If we have to bombard them with many of the docs then they may switch off!

Just a thought!

Couldn't agree more with this!

Would it also be an idea to produce a document for helping people manage their interviews with MPs? Things such as...

1. The order in which material is presented. Like Marcuss says, there's a welter of material to digest. It might be useful to prioritise it so as to provide MPs with the most effective narrative flow.

2. Focus on countering the standard Gaukian responses. There seems little point in spending 20 minutes worth of valuable time with an MP only to allow him\her to be fobbed off with the usual nonsense.

3. How to avoid being sidetracked. As Toocan says, this isn't about tax-avoidance or tax-evasion. It's about misinformation, deception and outright lies. It's about ordinary people being punished for HMRC's ludicrous policy decisions.

[CanPayButWouldRatherNot]

met paul burstow (lib) today

me and the wife met Paul Burstow LIB today and the Lib(rary)

He has been supportive in the past few years (pre and post election) and he said he will get on to gauke again and was grateful for the one pager, the timeline and the recent I009 doc.

Dont really know if he had actually read the 2 pager that the lobbyist had prepared and I had emailed over ...but ran through our story to remind him ...(First there was the dinosaurs etc...

He asked

"have you been through the HMRC complaints procedure given the issues you have had with them"

He suggested that we get the parliamentary ombudsman to check out our complaints of hmrc delaying and general sh*t show.

He suggested that if Jane Kennedy felt misled by HMRC that we should get her to sign an affidavit to say so.

Told him that Vince and LIB's dont like retro ... and he should stick it to gauke ...

We shall see.

(my only worry he is Minister of State for Care Services ... in the q to see him were lots of ill folks ...and had the feeling that a boring tax fight for a healthy family might not get much of a look in on the time front compared to the sick and needy in the q to see him )

Yours CPBWRN

[DonkeyRhubarb]

me and the wife met Paul Burstow LIB today and the Lib(rary)

Don't forget if you have any contact with your MP send me this form. Whitehouse are building up a database.

Date [dd/mm/yy]:
Your name:
E-mail:
Phone (optional):
Name of your MP:
Party [Conservative/LibDem/Labour/SNP/Other]:
Date you wrote to them [dd/mm/yy]:
Date they replied [dd/mm/yy]:
Date you met with them [dd/mm/yy]:
Do they support our cause to get s58 amended [Yes/No]?
General remarks on any feedback you've had:

Thanks
DR
donkeyrhubarb AT rocketmail.com

[GottaBeOptimistic]

I'm in...

Deposit made, more to be made in the future.......

Time to start reading and then go back to my MP me thinks.....

Great job team.........

[OnYourBikeGB]

A bit of an aside, but there's an interesting article here on Apple's tax avoidance strategies, which routes many of it's worldwide profits through Ireland, as well as shifting corporate profits to Nevada to pay zero tax, despite the headquarters being in California.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/bu...ions.html?_r=1

What's more interesting is the comments. There's a surprising amount of support for Apple, even applause, at the companies strategy of maximising profits. There's dissenters too, but not the sort of barbed comments we get occasionally. American's, and for that matter their Government, seem to be much more in tune with understanding the difference between tax avoidance and evasion. The Law actually seems to mean something there, even the Government respects it.

[NotOverYet]

Email to JG

Originally Posted by taxedermy

yup I have JG as my MP.. I wrote to her and got the standard reply that she would look into it.

I havnt arranged a meeting yet.

Taxidermy - did you bring document K010 to her attention, to remind her of her stance when she was in opposition?

I sent an email to JG at the beginning of the month including her email and the response from DG. I have yet to hear anything other than the automatic response email. At the beginning of last week I sent a reminder incorporating the Briefing Note and a mention of when HMRC first informed us that they thought the scheme did not work.

Hopefully we'll receive a helpful response soon.

Many thanks to everyone for all the hard work in pursuing justice.

[CanPayButWouldRatherNot]

damn forgot to get a yes/no from my mp

Don't forget if you have any contact with your MP send me this form. Whitehouse are building up a database.

Thanks
DR
donkeyrhubarb AT rocketmail.com

DR,

Looking again at the form I think I should have asked this million dollar question

"Do they support our cause to get s58 amended [Yes/No]? "

So if you are seeing your MP ... ask them for a yes/no (assuming you can get one)

DR> I think he is a yes but will email to ask him !!

Yours CPBWRN

[slogger]

Don't forget if you have any contact with your MP send me this form. Whitehouse are building up a database.



Thanks
DR
donkeyrhubarb AT rocketmail.com

response from my MP below:-

Dear Mr xxxx,

Thank you for contacting me about retrospective tax and Section 58 of the Finance Act 2008.

I am sorry to hear that you have suffered from the retrospective changes made by Section 58 of the Finance Act passed under the last Labour Government.

The Government set out its position on retrospection in the “Tackling Tax Avoidance” document, produced as part of the Budget 2011. The Government is clear that the deterrent effect of acting retrospectively needs to be balanced against the need for maintaining the UK tax system’s reputation for predictability, stability and simplicity. In particular the Protocol states that changes to tax legislation where the change takes effect retrospectively will be wholly exceptional.

The 2008 Finance Act ensures that the UK has always retained the right to tax its own residents. The Act was introduced in response to an artificial avoidance scheme used by more than 3,000 taxpayers. This scheme looked to exploit a perceived loophole in legislation enacted in 1987 that was intended to put beyond doubt that the UK has always retained the right to tax its own residents.

In two judicial reviews, the Courts have found that the retrospective element of the legislation is proportionate and compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. While I am sorry to hear you have been affected by Section 58, the Government accepts the Courts’ verdicts that the changes were both a proportionate and legal response to the tax avoidance undertaken.

I understand that HMRC has consistently made it clear that it considered that the scheme did not work and has regularly recommended that payments on account be made. HMRC has established procedures to consider allowing Time to Pay for those with short term difficulties meeting liabilities as they fall due.

Thank you again or taking the time to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Above is after several emails with me chasing... :-(