BN66/S58 update

[AtW]

[fullyautomatix]

If you cock up and forgot to invoice your client for some hours and bill them for it two years later, what do you think would happen (actually what IS the legal position here)? Maybe the fact the government were so slow to act in closing the loophole means they should suffer the loss as a fault of their disorganisation? It's not like this is chasing people from a year or two back, but closer a decade. Regardless of fault, it's crazy to expect people to be able to cough up such sums after such a long period.

For the record I too think it was a dumb idea to invest in such schemes BUT two wrongs do not make a right.

HMRC are not waiting watching real time data and wanting to chase criminals who committed a crime in real time. They have limited resources and will come after you when they can.

HTH

[Old Greg]

Agree with the summarisation SAS. Sounds logical. Also to add, the minority of greedy IT consultants were offered this scheme "exclusively". This means the dog on the road like you and me could not access this scheme.

The BN66 crew and the muppets who support them like Dh00g and NotAllThere and Cojak etc keep arguing that this sets a precedent which means the govt will keep changing laws retrospectively, which is simply bollox. If someone interprets the law differently and commits a crime the govt will change laws to nab the culprit, those of us who abide by the law will never ever get affected.

The precedent argument is poor. Good forward looking legislation does not set a precedent for poor forward looking legislation. So why should it be different for retrospective legislation. Each law should be judged on its own merits. Precedence is for case law, not legislation.

[eek]

Why are you mad?

[Old Greg]

Why are you mad?

Because it's not illegal.

[IR35 Avoider]

Given that those people who entered the scheme claim to have entered it due to IR35 and the imposed costs that occur from being treated as employees why did you all settle upon a scheme that paid a mere 3.5% to HMRC when previously you were happily paying 25% corporation tax (I can't remember the exact rate at the time)?

It's not like there's a menu of apparently legal schemes people can choose from. At any givent time there was probably at most two to choose from. And, given that you are convinced they are legal, why would you choose the one that gives you least?

[AtW]

Because it's not illegal.

It's not immoral as well

[proggy]

Although I agree paying 3.5% tax is a bit of a piss take, and I never used such schemes the retrospective part should be dropped or limited to maybe a year. We can argue all day over morality but the law is the law and it was legal at the time. I reckon a compromise will be reached and a limit applied to the retrospective part.

[Old Greg]

It's not like there's a menu of apparently legal schemes people can choose from. At any givent time there was probably at most two to choose from. And, given that you are convinced they are legal, why would you choose the one that gives you least?

So it's ok for anyone to do what they like as long as it's legal?

[AtW]

We can argue all day over morality but the law is the law and it was legal at the time.

The courts said it was legal for Govt to use this particular element of retrospection.

So the law has spoken - what the Govt did was legal.

Some could argue that it was immoral for Govt to do it, but it's legal.

Why should the Govt cave in after it won the legal challenge?