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

[OnYourBikeGB]

At the MTM Briefing I went to (2002?) I asked that very question - 'could tax laws be changed backwards?' The answer I got (I think from MTM's legal cousel) was that the last time the law had been changed retrospectively in Britain was at the time of William the Conqueror. Obviously this was not quite technically correct in light of the 1988 Padmore case. They did however state that there was no absolute guarantee that the scheme would work, only that a high level legal review had concluded that it should work.
MTM/Montpelier have been good to their word and more, in honouring all their promises ('will fight any challenge all the way to the High Court'). They have now gone beyond that to Europe, and also over the many years have done a satisfactory job keeping the HMRC off our backs.
I do agree it would be nice to get the fees back, to help reduce the possible bill, but I don't see that there is any compulsion for Montpelier to have to do this, other than out of the goodness of their hearts.

I don't have any intention of turning on MontP at this point. I agree, and I've said it many times, that they have been true to their word and compared to what some unlucky souls have found out, we've been very fortunate. That said, I suspect what would happen would be a collapse of the MontP structures, without anything being paid out, and good luck to them. Do I recall a few years ago that part of this has already happened?

There is an attraction to adding to the mess that they system will end up in. It's just a point of view, but the bigger the mess, the more pressure it puts on HMRC and the Government to be held to account for causing it, and more importantly, to act to fix it. They would be caught between a rock and a hard place. They can't remove people's right to demand compensation without increasing the mess, and they can't allow gridlock and be held accountable for it. I think leaving open the possibility that we will happily contribute to this mess works to our benefit and I don't think anything should be ruled out while HMRC / Gauke & Co are deciding how they are going to use these new powers. Giving them any level of certainty because we are doing the decent thing, works in their favour, not ours. Whether we do pursue compensation is something for further down the line when we see how this gets played out. For now, I would want them to know that chaos is a possibility, they will be held to some extent responsible, and I'm not going to ease any concerns they might have.

[BrilloPad]

As you would expect there is a sequence, Initially the scheme provider, then if no joy the FOS (Financial Ombudsman service), then the Financial services compensation scheme should the scheme provider have since disappeared, the FSCS pay max of £50k, better than a kick in the teeth!

This will be almost as big as PPI according to financial experts!

does make me wonder, has anyone even asked MP if they are prepared to cover the APN's, its never really crossed my mind but it should have? I suspect nobody has, its a basic question really, its their scheme after all...

I am happy to ask WG. Liverpool 8th September. Anyone want to join me?

[bananarepublic]

I am happy to ask WG. Liverpool 8th September. Anyone want to join me?

No.

What exactly are we being compensated for?

[BrilloPad]

Forget about it. The company we paid fee's too are long gone.

The money is in Barbados. That not the point. Compensation can come from the government.

We just need "DoodgyTaxSchemeLawyers4U" or some such to get to work on our case. No win no fee.

[BrilloPad]

I don't have any intention of turning on MontP at this point.

Fair enough - but if we have too when we should. I don't like all the money being offshore and I don't like the lack of donations to NTRT. I also don't like the way we have be caught in a personal battle between HMRC and WG.

Anyone heard from John Cuddy recently?

[smalldog]

Im not turning on anyone until we get a brown envelope. I will then be asking MP what their stance is, if they tell me to get lost, OR dont come back with a credible plan that fits inside the 90 days then I will be contacting the FOS in the Isle of Man. If I get no joy from them then I will be speaking to the FSCS to seek government sponsored compensation.

Hey, cant be anything more galling to gauke and co. to find out the government are actually giving me the money to pay the HMRC APN under the financial compensation scheme!!

But as has been said already, we dont have a bill yet so cant do anymore than research options. Each to their own but my loyalty to MP does not stretch to 6 figures!

[OnYourBikeGB]

Compensation can come from the government.

And that is a clinching argument as to why we don't want to let them know if we are going to do the 'decent' thing or not.

[BrilloPad]

And that is a clinching argument as to why we don't want to let them know if we are going to do the 'decent' thing or not.

I am not sure what the decent thing and the un-decent thing are?

Right now I would go for anything and everything.

[bananarepublic]

I don't have any intention of turning on MontP at this point. I agree, and I've said it many times, that they have been true to their word and compared to what some unlucky souls have found out, we've been very fortunate. That said, I suspect what would happen would be a collapse of the MontP structures, without anything being paid out, and good luck to them. Do I recall a few years ago that part of this has already happened?

There is an attraction to adding to the mess that they system will end up in. It's just a point of view, but the bigger the mess, the more pressure it puts on HMRC and the Government to be held to account for causing it, and more importantly, to act to fix it. They would be caught between a rock and a hard place. They can't remove people's right to demand compensation without increasing the mess, and they can't allow gridlock and be held accountable for it. I think leaving open the possibility that we will happily contribute to this mess works to our benefit and I don't think anything should be ruled out while HMRC / Gauke & Co are deciding how they are going to use these new powers. Giving them any level of certainty because we are doing the decent thing, works in their favour, not ours. Whether we do pursue compensation is something for further down the line when we see how this gets played out. For now, I would want them to know that chaos is a possibility, they will be held to some extent responsible, and I'm not going to ease any concerns they might have.

I don't think Gauke goes to bed at night worrying about the mess he is creating and the trouble it puts people in.

The government are PR obsessed and probably quite happy to see a few "tax avoiding scum" jumping off tall buildings if it gets their simplistic narrative through.

By turning inwards all that will be achieved is that we lose our one chance to defeat this which is a win in the courts. Even if it is unlikely.

We are likely to be receiving APN's in the near future. Even if compensation off someone was possible I can say with certainty that it will be well after the APN would have become payable.

Everybody affected is stressed about this but I'd rather deal with hard certainty than wishful thinking.

[eek]

Im not turning on anyone until we get a brown envelope. I will then be asking MP what their stance is, if they tell me to get lost, OR dont come back with a credible plan that fits inside the 90 days then I will be contacting the FOS in the Isle of Man. If I get no joy from them then I will be speaking to the FSCS to seek government sponsored compensation.

But that compensation would depend on you showing the FSCS that you joined the scheme based on mis-selling by an FSCS regulated company....

Sadly while I think you were mis-sold the scheme I don't think you were mis-sold the scheme by an FSCS regulated company.