PCG have won the Arctic S660a case

[DimPrawn]

Yes a good analogy is that foiling a bank robbery is a loss of £1M to the theives.

It was never their money to take, so they are not losing it.

[DodgyAgent]

Yes a good analogy is that foiling a bank robbery is a loss of £1M to the theives.

It was never their money to take, so they are not losing it.

Well done the PCG

[DaveB]

So basically Hector and Co. got Bitch Slapped in the high court and told not to be so bloody silly?

Sounds good to me

[Mailman]

Its interesting that their initial comment was to say something about issuing revised guidence and not to say they will look at it and then possibly lodge an appeal.

Mailman

[malvolio]

They're going to have problems either way. They have a week to lodge a request to the HoL for an appeal there. If that is granted (based on the likelihood of there being a reasonable case to answer, not the chance of a win), it will be over a year before it gets heard. Having read the judgement yesterday, it's also unlikely (never say never in legal circles!) that there will be any points at which the noble Lords will reverse the eminently sensible decision of three of the country's top judges. After all that, they still have to redefine the issued guidance then identify which of the 800k-odd companies they are going to tackle next.

Alternatively they will need new legislation. The chances of this parliament pushing through a measure with such a potentially devastating effect on the average man-in-the-street voter is fairly low, especially since they won't be able to limit its scope to any extent. They will have to come up with something entirely new (although anyone want to bet it's already been drafted?) at the next Budget, although there have been no clear indicators of that at the PBR stage.

Meanwhile, they will have to re-issue their guidance, which was rewritten after they won the first appeal, in the face of the certain knowledge that the case was going to be taken further. It will be interesting to see what that says...

[Bagpuss]

Have to agree with Tim, I fail to see bias in the Article. They reported what the revenue think and the views of the Pricewaterhouse. The revenue are always going to spin it out as a projected tax loss. The BBC are passing no judgement on the outcome. There is no aspersion cast that these are not genuine 'family' business.

[malvolio]

See - nobody understands the proper use of English any more... No wonder Cambell was so successful.

One last time - the revenue have not lost anything other than a court case. The money was never theirs to take, so how can they have lost it? The hidden implication is that those nasty people have defrauded the country of £1bn that could have gone to build 8 new hospitals, or something.

I can tolerate spin from HMG, from politicians and from some bits of the press, but not an organisation chartered to be politically neutral.

Then I'm obviously out of date.

[tim123]

Whilst I accept your point Malvolio, ISTM to me a fairly minor semantic issue. It hardly comes close to the "most biased report ever" as originally claimed.

tim

[NoddY]

Just think of the tax advantages of having more than one wife...

...plus some other advantages...

[wendigo100]

Whilst I accept your point Malvolio, ISTM to me a fairly minor semantic issue. It hardly comes close to the "most biased report ever" as originally claimed.

tim

I've just read it for the first time, and it does come across to me as the country "losing" a billion on a technicality.

I'm with Malvolio on this one, because I don't think it was the country's money in the first place, and I too don't think the BBC have made that point.