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

[Alba]

Corporation v's PAYE tax to be paid

All very depressing, but whatever way I read it, it's not good. It does look like it is referring to the tax, not the interest, so I presume, having got their hands on it, the interest stops accumulating. I wonder at what stage people wake up and realise that it's not just tax avoidance that can be morally repugnant. How do these laws come into being, is there no-one in Parliament prepared to say that this is just wrong? Full-blown retrospection has arrived, as we said it would, when this all started. Never thought I'd get caught twice by it though. There is a part of me that just wants this done. If legally I have to pay, then I will do what I can to do so. I am older, wiser and infinitely more cynical than I was when this all started. It has ruined lives, but hey, as long as Cameron and his cronies in the Burlington club can continue to smash up restaurants and burn £50 notes under the noses of tramps, the country's morals are safe. I'm sickened to my core.

A question that has been asked many times, but no clear guidance has been given to us, unless of course you are famous:

COMEDIAN JIMMY CARR is to pay around £500,000 in tax after leaving the controversial K2 tax avoidance scheme that left him paying a rate of just 1%.

As a result, his company is now paying full corporation tax. The legal, but infamously "morally repugnant" scheme worked by transferring salaries into a Jersey-based trust, which lent investors back the money. As the loan could technically be recalled, it was not subject to income tax. It sheltered £168m from the taxman annually.

As a result of the revelations, Carr became the face of the government's battle against tax avoidance, with the prime minister branding the comedian's tax affairs "dodgy" during a state visit to Mexico.

But the comic's latest accounts for his business, FN Good Ltd, for the year ending April 2013, reveal it made a £2.5m profit, the Mirror reports. The tax bill is based on 23% of his earnings.

His tweeted apology at the time read: "I met with a financial adviser and he said, ‘do you want to pay less tax? It's totally legal'. I said ‘yes'. I now realise I've made a terrible error of judgment."

[PlaneSailing]

Unintended consequences

Does Gauke think that this encourage people to fill in the DOTAS number? Surely this sort of stupid measure will result in more evasion and non- disclosure.

Re-reading the proposal, the HMRC claim that they win the majority of cases. That is because they pick their fights, like for example the 2007 case they pulled out of.

And another thought: If I paid money 'due' when they opened up enquires, I would expect to be ruled by the law at the time I paid. Anything else would be arbitrary taxation and possibly viewed as confiscation. If these proposals go ahead, I can't see how Hector's time machine could be used again.

[Cantthinkof1]

Will Justice prevail ?

Sitting here in the Bus Shelter with the rain beating down (well, I am joking at present but this may well be the reality very soon), I am really at a total loss as to how this total injustice can be allowed to go on in a "so called" civilised society!
If the bill does get through Parliament, and I now believe it will (no doubt in some disguise!), I will be totally wiped out, along with many others.
I still pinch myself and wonder if I am having just one almighty nightmare, but sadly if I am, it is going on for a little too long now.
Imagine if we apply this to sporting events, e.g. football. You are loosing at half time, but no problem, you simply go into the dressing room and redraft the rules, WITHOUT telling the other side of course. In the second half, using your new rules you end up winning the game!
Exactly, it would NOT be allowed and neither should this ! - a clear case of changing the rules half way through. O.K. I have tried in my own little way to put down on paper my views on this, but still can't quite believe this is actually happening!
I guess that this is being brought about as a result of the believe that if we take this to Europe then we may be looking at a few more years before resolution.
As I have said before, YES, it would be good to get a satisfactory FAIR resolution, but fair play has to come into the equation - SURELY ?

[eek]

Sitting here in the Bus Shelter with the rain beating down (well, I am joking at present but this may well be the reality very soon), I am really at a total loss as to how this total injustice can be allowed to go on in a "so called" civilised society!
If the bill does get through Parliament, and I now believe it will (no doubt in some disguise!), I will be totally wiped out, along with many others.
I still pinch myself and wonder if I am having just one almighty nightmare, but sadly if I am, it is going on for a little too long now.
Imagine if we apply this to sporting events, e.g. football. You are loosing at half time, but no problem, you simply go into the dressing room and redraft the rules, WITHOUT telling the other side of course. In the second half, using your new rules you end up winning the game!
Exactly, it would NOT be allowed and neither should this ! - a clear case of changing the rules half way through. O.K. I have tried in my own little way to put down on paper my views on this, but still can't quite believe this is actually happening!
I guess that this is being brought about as a result of the believe that if we take this to Europe then we may be looking at a few more years before resolution.
As I have said before, YES, it would be good to get a satisfactory FAIR resolution, but fair play has to come into the equation - SURELY ?

Nope the timing is perfect for HMRC. The general public have a strong anti-tax dodgying viewpoint at the moment and there is an election coming up. Unless the MP is retiring or wants to lose (and no one would bother standing if they wanted to lose) there is no one on earth an MP will vote against this clause....

[OnYourBikeGB]

I'm starting to wonder if this DOTAS / pseudo DOTAS thing is going to turn out to be one money-grab too far. There 'a a slow dawning happening, and the uncertainty and genuine fear it's causing amongst many different businesses is becoming quite loud. Sooner or later this will tip over into louder protest. People may not like tax-avoiders, until they get caught in the net too, but I'm not sure about the size of HMRCs fan club either, and this isn't going to help.

If HMRC are so successful in court, you have to wonder why they are so keen, given that they'll miss out on all those lovely penalties and interest. Must be then because they don't like the law. There will be, must be, concerted opposition to this, and if cases that do get to court are found to be legal and legitimate, then surely it is right and proper that the same level of penalties and interest that were once placed on those found to have fallen foul of the law should now be placed on HMRC. I mean, it was morally correct when it was the other way around, surely the same applies? Of course with their. 80% success rate, they've little to worry about. HMRC and the Government can not be allowed to impose something like this without corresponding checks and balances.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Of course with their. 80% success rate, they've little to worry about.

Their own Litigation & Settlement Strategy (LSS) precludes them from taking cases to court where they don't have a good chance of winning.

So 80% success rate isn't really that surprising.

[OnYourBikeGB]

Their own Litigation & Settlement Strategy (LSS) precludes them from taking cases to court where they don't have a good chance of winning.

So 80% success rate isn't really that surprising.

Which is all the more reason to insist that when cases do reach court, that HMRC are made to bear the full brunt of their decision to deprive a business of their funding. It's exactly the same argument that they are using to justify taking this action in the first place, that these arrangements, which they claim don't work, are depriving the revenue. I wonder how keen they'd be to enforce then. And I believe that the public would see it as a fair and proportionate counter-check. Everyone knows someone who has been hounded unfairly, even if it's only an incorrect tax code. For every case they bring there's probably a huge number they don't, so if they want to lump everyone together, I say the public has a right to insist that such a power is not abused.

[eek]

Which is all the more reason to insist that when cases do reach court, that HMRC are made to bear the full brunt of their decision to deprive a business of their funding. It's exactly the same argument that they are using to justify taking this action in the first place, that these arrangements, which they claim don't work, are depriving the revenue. I wonder how keen they'd be to enforce then. And I believe that the public would see it as a fair and proportionate counter-check. Everyone knows someone who has been hounded unfairly, even if it's only an incorrect tax code. For every case they bring there's probably a huge number they don't, so if they want to lump everyone together, I say the public has a right to insist that such a power is not abused.

Aren't all these cases Section 9A cases? I.e. against individuals / self employed individuals and hence not businesses....

[smalldog]

The ultimate problem being, where do we get the chance to impose penalties against hmrc? If they wrongfully take money in advance on a follower notice and we successfully win during appeal I assume we can impose a 5, 10, 100% penalty?

Joking aside, why the F not, should be reciprocal if they are that bold of certainty. Or maybe they aren't, just dice loaded in their favour....surely not one sided

[OnYourBikeGB]

Aren't all these cases Section 9A cases? I.e. against individuals / self employed individuals and hence not businesses....

I think most self-employed people would argue they are in business, and I'm not just referring to IT workers. Not everyone uses a limited company, ruin them, you ruin their business. But, that wasn't the point I was making, it was simply that if HMRC want to have these powers, counterbalances are necessary with consequences for misuse so that they cannot be used arbitrarily as a tactic to avoid the law, because that's what's going to happen if there isn't. I don't think that it's unreasonable that to have these powers, penalties and proper compensation are made available to those people who will suffer as a result of Hector forcing their opinion over the rule of law.