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

[SLB]

MP response

Dear SLB,

In order to be as helpful as possible, I have forwarded your letter concerning the Finance Act 2008 to my Liberal Democrat colleagues by email. I have also rang their offices to flag this matter up with their staff.

Yours sincerely


About as good as can be expected from a member of the cabinet in as far as he has to toe the party line on this.

[centurian]

There are quite a few inaccuracies in her comments. She is vastly exaggerating and also making assumptions to make her point. She says that she paid 50% tax. She didnt pay 50% on all her income. This is a vast exaggeration to make her point. She might have paid around 30% overall.

Inside IR35 on a gross of £200K pa does in fact come to roughly 50% total tax - once employers NI are factored in.

Whether those were really her circumstances though....

[SantaClaus]

This is not "stolen" or it would be evasion. Stealing is criminal, as is evasion. They go hand in hand, avoidance is neither stealing nor criminal.

Yep, and if it is criminal, let's be tried in a criminal court, for retrospection is not allowed in criminal law.

[Disgusted of Coventry]

Gauke:

"HMRC’s clear view is that the change introduced by section 58 was a clarification and that, although potentially more protracted and costly, litigation on the basis of the pre-section 58 legislation would ultimately show that the scheme failed. Whichever legislative route is involved, the tax avoided and the amount outstanding would be the same"

That's a far cry from Justice Parker's opinion:

72: [...] I do not believe that the outcome of any legal proceedings in respect of the arrangements would have been a foregone conclusion. They would, I believe, have been complex, protracted and costly.

[lucozade]

Steve Baker

I'm still very confused at what Mr Baker's role was in the amendment. His blog doesn't fill me with that much confidence. I sincerely hope it's all part of a bigger plan and he knows what he's doing.

Something just doesn't seem right.

[SantaClaus]

You have overlooked the possibility that Gauke is talking flowers from Amsterdam and that we all know that pre s58 litigation can't be allowed to happen because what we did was obviously legal.

Must have been on the wacky backy.

[foolishboy]

In her comment, Rachel said:

"If the amendment is successful, then it will mean that 3000 wealthy individuals will get away with retaining the £200,000,000+ they have, in my opinion (And the opinion of the judge when this went to the court of appeal .. see reference below), unfairly “stolen” this money from the the majority of people who earn far less but who choose not to greedily exploit loopholes in the law for their own personal gain."

Never mind who she is. How do we convince people with that point of view that the retrospective effect of S58 should be overturned, given that there are lots of people who don't like tax avoiders and lots of newspaper journalists who seem to agree with her?

Putting aside the details of our complicated case, what is our soundbite response?

My soundbite response would be, "what I did was legal and fully disclosed. In fact my attitude was no different to Amazon, Google, Vodafone, etc corporate tax policy to mitigate their tax liability. How much has the Exchequer lost from them? Do you propose retrospective corporate taxation of those companies? No, thought not. I rest my case"

And thats just one of many.

[Buzby]

That's a far cry from Justice Parker's opinion:

72: [...] I do not believe that the outcome of any legal proceedings in respect of the arrangements would have been a foregone conclusion. They would, I believe, have been complex, protracted and costly.

Better then to change the law rather than bothering to going through a complex, protracted and costly process.

Should we be requesting our MPs to ask some questions to Gauke, like

in the recent debate you said "Government should use retrospection only after very careful consideration", could he expand on how in 2008 the government considered the impact of section 58

As someone else has said, I do not think our scheme was that different to other schemes, yet no other scheme's have been closed down retrospectively and with the new measure in place, unlikely that any will going back as far as S58 did.

So when I try and explain to my children, we drove at 40 mph and the law changed to make the speed limit 30, going back 7 years. lots of other people drove at 40 but they did it in blue cars, unfortunately we did it in a red car.

[SantaClaus]

I wouldn't be surprised if Rachel & Fiona are HMRC stooges.

Only somebody who works for HMRC would be proud of (and think it's right to) pay 60% tax. Of course, her figures are all wrong, but would anyone want to give more money to our bloated and overpaid state than their very own family?

[Fireship]

That's a far cry from Justice Parker's opinion:

72: [...] I do not believe that the outcome of any legal proceedings in respect of the arrangements would have been a foregone conclusion. They would, I believe, have been complex, protracted and costly.

Gauke needs explain himself to his peers ("litigation on the basis of the pre-section 58 legislation would ultimately show that the scheme failed") as the courts have already confirmed this is not the case. He is speaking an untruth, in short knowingly lying to parliament....