I always knew we were right....

[BrilloPad]

<deleted>

[normalbloke]

You may well do. Others clearly don't.

And what's with the ? Can't you handle a reasoned debate?

That graphic was referring to HMRC and their thinking. Nothing personal. Sorry you took it as such.

[normalbloke]

"Just because something is legal doesn't make it right".

For example, HMRC have had the law changed retrospectively. That's not right, but it seems to be turning out to be legal.

Conversely, using artificial set ups to dodge tax is viewed by many people as not right, even if it is legal. If you are one of the people who've used these schemes, I'd stick to arguing about the apparent retrospective application of tax law. You'll get sympathy and support for that. Arguing that you "never dun nuffink wrong" may technically be true, but it is something you should steer clear of - it's a hiding to nothing.

Thanks for the advice. Comes over as a bit patronising but hey. Not after sympathy tbh, but justice, as currently no judge has told me I've broken any law. It's interesting though, to be judged by HMRC and the 'court of Public Opinion' rather than the real courts. We shall see.

[eek]

Thanks for the advice. Comes over as a bit patronising but hey. Not after sympathy tbh, but justice, as currently no judge has told me I've broken any law. It's interesting though, to be judged by HMRC and the 'court of Public Opinion' rather than the real courts. We shall see.

The problem here is that you went to court lost and when you appealed the courts went meh!!!

[AtW]

Thanks for the advice. Comes over as a bit patronising but hey. Not after sympathy tbh, but justice, as currently no judge has told me I've broken any law. It's interesting though, to be judged by HMRC and the 'court of Public Opinion' rather than the real courts. We shall see.

Justice is when people in same situation pay same amount of tax - it's totally unjust that somebody can get into artificial scheme that has no economic sense to dodge taxes everybody else would have pay.

[Living life on the Edge]

total bollux.

"treading on very thin ice, any questions of legality aside." WTF? The only thing that matters here is legality. Avoidance is legal, evasion illegal.

If HMRC want to counter schemes then they should try simplyfying the tax code.

+1

and they could also desist from using the phrase 'aggressive tax avoidance'....what legal basis does the phrase have anyway and when does 'tax avoidance' become 'aggressive tax avoidance'? It seems that the phrase is used for added emphasis when the average 'man in the street' doesn't even know the difference between avoidance and evasion.

I would also add that simplifying the tax code should include legislation along the lines followed in Australia - all schemes marketed here have to be pre-approved by the Australian Tax Office and any scheme that does not carry the ATO approval code will be open to swift legal challenge. Such front-loading of the approval removes the grey area of DOTAS in the UK which currently serves no-one except tax lawyers and the scheme marketers themselves.

[normalbloke]

The problem here is that you went to court lost and when you appealed the courts went meh!!!

Yes... but the Judicial Review was nothing to do with the original scheme being legal or not. It was to do with the reasons for retrospection. The full facts surrounding the legislative process leading to S58 weren't in the public domain then. They are now thanks to FOI, and additional steps are being taken by the NTRT group against HMRC.

[normalbloke]

Justice is when people in same situation pay same amount of tax - it's totally unjust that somebody can get into artificial scheme that has no economic sense to dodge taxes everybody else would have pay.

Apologies, I meant justice as in the legal sense. Not the opinion (non)sense. Anyway I feel deja vu coming on.

[eek]

Yes... but the Judicial Review was nothing to do with the original scheme being legal or not. It was to do with the reasons for retrospection. The full facts surrounding the legislative process leading to S58 weren't in the public domain then. They are now thanks to FOI, and additional steps are being taken by the NTRT group against HMRC.

But the problem with courts is that you usually only get 1 bite of the cherry. Sadly you've had your chance and all that's left is vague hope.

[AtW]

Apologies, I meant justice as in the legal sense. Not the opinion (non)sense. Anyway I feel deja vu coming on.

You've had justice in legal sense also.