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

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Since the HMRC letter we've had a flurry of new members and further donations which are still coming in.

Some people have contacted us who would like to join but can't afford £200. If anyone else is in this position please don't be put off. Get in touch with us through the link on the website.

Thank you very much
DR

[smalldog]

Since the HMRC letter we've had a flurry of new members and further donations which are still coming in.

Some people have contacted us who would like to join but can't afford £200. If anyone else is in this position please don't be put off. Get in touch with us through the link on the website.

Thank you very much
DR

Are ntrt offering a time to pay arrangement?

[Dieselpower]

Since the HMRC letter we've had a flurry of new members and further donations which are still coming in.

Some people have contacted us who would like to join but can't afford £200. If anyone else is in this position please don't be put off. Get in touch with us through the link on the website.

Thank you very much
DR

Hi Guys,

I got the Lamb newsletter but what was he trying to tell us? We all know the history, but what a pity he missed out some of the earlier history which doesn’t support his case.

How come he did not explain why, if they decided in 2002 after TE63 that the income was not taxed, they went on to try and deceive us all by claiming it was taxable by quoting Archer Shee and s739. They knew full well those did not apply and by the way, he has conveniently forgotten that the EU has already told them that s739 is incompatible with EU law.

IMHO what they did was perhaps tantamount to demanding money with menaces when they knew they were not entitled to the money. Some people might of course take it one step further and call that fraud and deception.

If Lamb wants to quote legal precedents, let him look at what the court of appeal said about fraud and deception

The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the tort of deceit contains four ingredients:

1. a false representation;
2. the person giving the representation knows that it is false or he is reckless as to whether it is true or false;
3. the person giving the representation intends that a person should act in reliance on it; and
4. the person given the representation relies on it and in consequence suffers loss.

The Court of Appeal clarified that the “intention to deceive” falls within ingredients 2 and 3 above

Putting it more simply, “fraud includes any intentional or deliberate act to deprive another of property or money by guile, deception or other unfair means”

It about time those individuals who perpetrated this mess were held to account in the civil courts. There is also perhaps a case for HMRC individuals to answer in the civil or criminal courts for misfeasance or malfeasance.

Mr Lamb advises us to take out a CTD. Why would I give HMRC an interest free loan if I think I am going to win my case. In any event this will go on for years to come, hundreds of individual FTT cases (which themselves will all eventually be escalated to upper courts), a case in the ECJ another in the ECHR and an enquiry by the ombudsman to air all their dirty washing in public to untangle this horrendous web of deceit and maladministration. Just think of the time and cost fighting all those cases. All we need is one win. They need a full set of consecutive wins - ain't gonna happen.

In the likely event that we do win don’t forget that a £10,000 (CTD) now will only be worth around £8,000 in five years after inflation etc. So no I for one won’t be buying a CTD, despite Mr Lamb's best attempts to induce me to do so, using a selection of helpful (to HMRC) statements, his absurd belief that the amendment was not a probing one, and his failure to report for example Hansard 1987 which quite clearly set out the Intent of Parliament in respect of our exemption etc etc

I repeat the key point here that for CTDs under £100,000 you WILL NOT GET ANY INTEREST. So the value of say a £50k CTD in 5 years time will be a lot less than £50k. In other words, by taking Mr Lamb’s “advice” or by falling into his trap, you are effectively giving HMRC an interest free loan. Do we really wish to add insult to injury? Here is the relevant link

HM Revenue & Customs: The Certificate of Tax Deposit scheme

Why hasn’t Mr Lamb told us in his letter that we do NOT get interest on the CTD?

Finally, why had Mr Lamb written this letter, and made references to legal cases, when his ultimate boss, Mr David Gauke, recently stated in an answer to a Parliamentary question put forward by one of our numerous MP supporters that “he was unable to comment” due to ongoing litigation! What a joke. I wonder therefore whether Mr Lamb bothered to check with his superiors before issuing that newsletter? If Mr Gauke cannot comment, then how can the very people involved in the litigation (ie HMRC)? Naughty naughty Mr Lamb - trying to railroad us into believing that he is right and we are wrong, so therefore we really should pay up straightaway. And the letter was not even written on a WP basis. Clever. More fodder for an inevitable “global” JR, which will hopefully see a mountain of HMRC’s nonsense spanning 26 years laid before a Judge once and for all.

Interesting that NTRT numbers and donations have accelerated since we all received the letter. Well done that man! Let’s hope he issues another one real soon.

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

Just updated it with the definition of literal. Used correctly that letter is dynamite...

So what Mr Lamb is doing is this. First, the ruling he quoted has nothing to do with our case. The URL he helpfully provided is not easy reading but it can be read. So a quick summary to show thw absurdity of referring to it. That was a case where a business was doing work in the UK and US. Under that DTA, tax relief would be due on income earned in both jurisdictions which if applied meant that the DTA granted "double relief" to tax. In other words, a tax credit would be due on the same money in two places. As he rightly points out, that would not be the PURPOSE of a DTA. If read literally, then double tax relief can be inferred.

In our case nothing of the sort happened or has been claimed or relief applied for, The tax due on income under the UK/IoM DTA Business Profits Article levies a legally chartered tax rate of 0%. That is a world away from avoiding tax and a galaxy away from needing to "interpret" the UK/US DTA where 2 tax credits were being considered. The law WAS applied in our case and the PURPOSE of the law in the case of IoM Business Profits Article was that the rate of tax was a numeric value of ZERO PERCENT. If it were say 0.5% and we had somehow avoided that, then yes, the "double relief" Lamb refers to comes into play. The UK handed the taxing rights of our arrangements to the IoM. They in turn applied Statute to tax the relevant profits at ZERO PERCENT and Hector is now furious about that.

No PURPOSIVE approach is needed on the UK/IoM DTA as Lamb seems to insinuate since that has already been done - Padmore High Court case 1987. Parliament then tok that purposive ruling and applied statute to address it on "an admittidley restricted class of person - PARTNERS in a FOREIGN PARTNERSHIP". These words are from Norman Lamont in the July 15th 1987 debate on the matter. We are not and could never have been PARTNERS in anything. Hector pushed to change the law in s58 to suggest that we were "members of a firm" and so tax should be levied. Even Hectors witness statement makes a nonesense of that where they claim that "even if it was not explicit, it was at least implicit..." when referring to us being caught be the 1987 legislation. Tosh!

HMRC have claimed that the 1987 legislation had a wider meaning such that it applied to anyone entitled to the profits of such as partnership - us - as Hector claimed in the JR. Simply untrue. The Revenues own Defensive Notes on the matter from 1987 actually cover this as a point of why the legislation goes further. It does NOT go further to mean ALL persons as HMRC would have you believe. It went further to apply to ALL DTA's since at the time only 5 actually refer to partnerships in their literal wording.

So you see, this Lamb Letter is really a Dogs Dinner. The ruling he refers to was from 2010 and the assertion is the same as saying that an ISA is an abuse of the law. An ISA does not avoid tax anymore than the IoM taxing of Business Profits. Both have a legal rate of tax which has been duly applied of ZERO. The literal approach to this is actually the only aproach since the other was done in 1986 and found in favour of the taxpayer. The LITERAL intent of Parliament is recorded in Hansard from 1986. It was not intended to apply to US. The Revenues own Defensive Notes on that matter confirm there was no wider meaning of persons such as US. It took the nefarious application of s.58 to magic that. And their own JR testimony confirms that "it was at least implied" that we were caught. OMG. The contradictory view of one penpusher in HMRC that relied on "an implied" view was sufficient to warrant retrospection!!

BTW, the case Lamb refers to was from 2010 as I say and if it had any bearing on our case one might think that the judge might have referred to s.58 a few times. Well she didn't - not once.

So Mr Lamb, thankyou for your letter. And yes a literal interpretation is needed. Nothing was avoided twice. Never was and never could have been. The law as it was INTENDED was applied and followed TO THE LETTER - LITERALLY. That includes providing you with the SRN under DOTAS when it was NOT REQUIRED. You knew about this since Padmore via your International Handbook. You knew about it in TE63 from 2002. You knew about it when ITTOIA 2005 s858 was drafted. You know? The overhaul of tax legislation which then clarified the Padmore position and made ZERO references to some fanciful wider meaning of the law. You've had the chance to go in to bat so many times on this but decided to field instead. The reason is simple. You are on a sticky wicket and you know it.

And please ask your legal folks to word letters with better grammar. Literal is an absolute. It cannot be "very" or "a bit" or any other magnitude. It is absolute. And yes, an absolute interpretation of the law does as you now finally agree - allow our tax planning to work.

[screwthis]

So Mr Lamb, thankyou for your letter. And yes a literal interpretation is needed. Nothing was avoided twice. Never was and never could have been. The law as it was INTENDED was applied and followed TO THE LETTER - LITERALLY. That includes providing you with the SRN under DOTAS when it was NOT REQUIRED. You knew about this since Padmore via your International Handbook. You knew about it in TE63 from 2002. You knew about it when ITTOIA 2005 s858 was drafted. You know? The overhaul of tax legislation which then clarified the Padmore position and made ZERO references to some fanciful wider meaning of the law. You've had the chance to go in to bat so many times on this but decided to field instead.

Would it be worth NTRT sending a reply to this effect to highlight these points?
Also the point that whilst the scheme providers did in fact warn us that the arrangements were likely to be challenged and shut down they did NOT at any time, under any circumstances ever warn any of us that there was even a 1% chance that the scheme would be challenged retrospectively. Thus we all planned for prospective challenges as advised. To claim we are warned and should have legitimately expected to find ourselves in the position we now do is completely unfounded.

[swede]

Shhhhh, TSBT is in the building.

And please ask your legal folks to word letters with better grammar. Literal is an absolute. It cannot be "very" or "a bit" or any other magnitude. It is absolute. And yes, an absolute interpretation of the law does as you now finally agree - allow our tax planning to work.

Is it just me, or does the room go very quiet when TSBT enters the room?

Great reply, Sir.

[smalldog]

Is it just me, or does the room go very quiet when TSBT enters the room?

Great reply, Sir.

Wish TSBT could be representing us at the FTT too!

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

Is it just me, or does the room go very quiet when TSBT enters the room?

Great reply, Sir.

Well I wouldn't expect a direct real time reply from HMRC.

Pat Jones is on holiday
David Lamb is on holiday for half term
David MacDougall only works Mon & Tues so is basically working part time.

What in Heaven made them actually put on (toilet) paper their vacation slots which will be irrelevant after next week beggars belief. Except that the one key aspect of comedy is - timing.

One has to ask why make such a point of them all having vacation / OOO the same week and telling us all about it.

BTW, the URL at the end of the letter goes to a place that says "the location of this page has changed". Seems apt somehow that nothing HMRC refers to on this matter actually works and that what HMRC put into print changes (again, and again, and again....). Now were is my dictionary that defines maladministration?

[Tax_shouldnt_be_taxing]

Wish TSBT could be representing us at the FTT too!

For what it's worth the Lamb Letter is titled "Tax Avoidance schemes using Isle of Man and Channel Islands Double Taxation Arrangments"

Err, sorry I don't have anything to do with the latter any more than I have anything to do with Foreign Partnerships. But there's the Padmore angle being peddled again. I'm suprised he didn't add America to the subject heading since he is happy to quote a ruling on that DTA chapter and verse.

[TAF4]

TSBT - A scholar and a Gentleman

Is it just me, or does the room go very quiet when TSBT enters the room?

Great reply, Sir.

I shall raise a fine glass of red to you sir.



Thank you