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Kaye Adams

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    Kaye Adams

    Wins against HMRC after a 9 year fight

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/ta...ear-tax-fight/

    Kaye Adams has beaten the taxman in a nine-year dispute over her earnings as a presenter at the BBC.
    The Loose Women presenter was being chased for £124,000 in income tax and National Insurance contributions after HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) argued that she should have been taxed as an employee for her work at the broadcaster between 2013-2014 and 2016-2017, rather than a self-employed contractor.

    However, a first-tier tax tribunal has upheld the case on appeal, concluding that she was indeed self-employed and was entitled to pay lower rates of National Insurance.

    Kaye Adams, 60, worked for the BBC as a presenter of The Kaye Adams Programme in 2015 and 2016, but her services were not exclusive to the broadcaster. She also appeared on ITV’s Loose Women and as a paper reviewer for Sky TV.

    The case centred around so-called off-payroll working rules – or IR35 – which dictate how workers who provide their services through an intermediary like a limited company are assessed for tax purposes.

    If they are deemed “outside IR35”, they will be taxed as a self-employed worker. If they are “inside IR35”, they will be taxed as an employee. Ms Adams was contracted through her limited company, Atholl House Productions Limited.

    Other broadcasters including Gary Lineker and Adrian Chiles have also won cases over the controversial IR35 legislation, which Kwasi Kwarteng vowed to scrap during his brief time as chancellor last year.

    But the tax office has won 70pc of employment status and intermediary hearings at tribunal and the Court of Appeal since 2020.

    These include cases brought against Red, White and Green Limited – the personal service company of Eamonn Holmes.

    This was the fourth tribunal hearing relating to Ms Adams case since HMRC first enquired into her IR35 status in 2014.

    The Loose Women presenter had successfully won her appeal at the first-tier tax tribunal only for HMRC to repeatedly appeal the decision, leading to three more hearings.

    Ms Adams said: “I am delighted that the [first tribunal] has confirmed my self-employed status for the third time, but there is no jubilation for me in this result.

    “Over the nine years of this investigation, the mental stress has been close to unbearable at times, and the legal costs I have incurred far outweigh the tax at stake.”

    She added she had been 51-years-old when this ordeal began and now – at age 60 – she wanted to “to be released from my financial limbo and be able to plan for my future”.

    Dave Chaplin, CEO of the tax advisory firm IR35 Shield, who had been supporting Ms Adams with her case, said: “HMRC has relentlessly pursued Ms Adams, using the taxpayers’ purse.
    "You’re just a bad memory who doesn’t know when to go away" JR

    #2
    Surely after two failed goes the judge awards costs?
    Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

    Comment


      #3
      I read Dave Chaplin's Linkedin post on this last night. Staggering case really when you look at the detail.

      Comment


        #4
        9 years!!

        Whoever is wrong or right no one should be put through that.
        'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

        Comment


          #5
          Starts to sound like nuisance litigation or whatever the proper term is. HMRC should be covering her full costs, preferably from Jim Harra's own pocket

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by ladymuck View Post
            Starts to sound like nuisance litigation or whatever the proper term is. HMRC should be covering her full costs, preferably from Jim Harra's own pocket
            One hopes the court made this clear! HMRC are spending our money.

            I think you mean Vexatious but after 3 failures with the same evidence HMRC need a penalty.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexatious_litigation


            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_or_vexatious
            Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by vetran View Post

              One hopes the court made this clear! HMRC are spending our money.

              I think you mean Vexatious but after 3 failures with the same evidence HMRC need a penalty.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexatious_litigation


              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_or_vexatious
              It's already cost 50% more than the tax claimed, with a further appeal likely. HMRC's argument is that pursuing single cases to the bitter end would result in many more similar successes.

              More evidence, were it needed, that HMRC need a good kicking. Or a chancellor with the guts to stand up to them...

              Another related comment in LinkedIn today to the effect that one recent ruling stated that where HMRC's internal manual differed from actual law the law will always take precedence. That also seems to have ignored.
              Blog? What blog...?

              Comment


                #8
                This is Kaye Adams version of what they are doing in her own words
                https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/ta...self-employed/

                These past nine years have been a hard slog. But after close to a decade of fighting, this week I defeated the taxman for the third time.

                HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) had been pursuing me for £124,000 in disputed taxes it said I owed relating to my time working as a presenter for the BBC. It would have been closer to £70,000 after off-sets.

                It contested my status as a self-employed contractor, claiming I should be taxed as an employee, despite a 30 year career working across many media outlets. Even now , there is still a chance the tax office can appeal again.

                Apart from the on-going stress and the punishing legal and accountancy fees in contesting this claim – costs now sit around £200,000, most of it unrecoverable– the most gutting element for me has been the latent suggestion that I am a tax dodger. That is not who I am.

                I come from good working-class stock; I take pride in paying my fair dues.

                I gave up a safe employment contract more than thirty years ago and since then have worked for countless clients on hundreds of media projects.

                I set up my Personal Service Company in 2007, months after the birth of my second daughter on the advice of my accountant. It was standard practice in the industry for freelancers and many companies insisted on it.

                Work was thin on the ground at that time and I had no maternity pay to fall back on but I slowly built up a portfolio of engagements including TV, radio, column-writing and corporate hosting.

                One of those mixed bag of engagements was a morning radio show for the BBC. When I got a letter from HMRC in 2014 saying they considered me an employee of the BBC, I thought it was laughable. I was paid per show with no employment benefits.

                But, five years later, having burned through £125,000 of insurance cover and facing a tribunal, I wasn’t laughing any more.

                On the first day of the hearing, HMRC focused its claim on the two years in which my elderly parents fell into ill-health and subsequently passed away. While I did restrict my work for those two years to help care for them, I was sickened that HMRC would seek to take advantage.

                When I won, I was elated. Little did I know it was only the start of the nightmare. HMRC appealed – and this is where we get into David and Goliath territory – just as my insurance money had run out. So I had no resources, and they had the bottomless pit of the taxpayers’ purse.
                Last edited by SueEllen; 6 December 2023, 10:15.
                "You’re just a bad memory who doesn’t know when to go away" JR

                Comment


                  #9
                  They had the best barristers procured at government rates. I had to pay top dollar – £60,000 to defend myself and the risk of their costs on top if I lost. It was more than the tax at stake and a huge gamble but I was damned if I was going to give in to their mafia-style tactics. I won again.
                  They upped the ante and took it to the Court of Appeal. We are talking eye-watering figures now, sell-the-house time, and this is where it gets dystopian.

                  The Court of Appeal clarified some points of law – most in my favour – but declined to rule on my case and then awarded full costs to HMRC. They demanded £51,000 from me and the return of the costs I had won at the Upper Tribunal. I am unlikely to get any of that money back.

                  Cut to the most recent tribunal win – which cost another £75,000 – and it is three nil to me, yet HMRC still says it is “disappointed” in the decision. Why is it disappointed? Three tribunals tasked with enforcing the rule of law agree that I am a self-employed person. Surely, HMRC should be delighted?

                  Its job is to collect the “correct” amount of tax, not extort as much as it possibly can get away with. I have been inundated by congratulatory messages from people in the media business I don’t even know.
                  Most are not high-earners and many are saying regretfully: “I buckled”, “I caved in” , “couldn’t take it anymore”, having settled instead of standing their ground.

                  To be honest, if I had a crystal ball in 2014, I might have done the same. This ordeal on top of my parents’ illness and death took me to the edge on occasions. Is this really the way His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs should conduct itself’?

                  As far as I can see, the bigger agenda is to push as many freelancers as possible into a mythical status known as “employed for tax purposes” – to pay full-whack tax with zero employment benefits.
                  "You’re just a bad memory who doesn’t know when to go away" JR

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Nice to see HMRC likes wasting our money -

                    https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tax/...rm=Read%20more


                    Although the disputed tax and NIC bill was £124,000, the amount that would be payable after taking into account taxes already paid by Adams would be in the region of £70,000. Adams has spent much more than that defending her case. Dave Chaplin, CEO of IR35 Shield, who has been supporting Adams since 2019, estimates that HMRC has spent around £250,000 on this case.
                    "You’re just a bad memory who doesn’t know when to go away" JR

                    Comment

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