BIG GROUP

[piebaps]

Why not ring WTT and ask?
Webberg is the man on here and they offer a free initial consultation.
At least you would be talking to a human being who understands the position.
Also Phil Manley offers similar at a firm called DSW.
You can google either of them and of course other advisors are available.

[Bemi]

Can Big Group help with any of the following:

• Protecting me against future demands for loan repayment
• Stopping the stress of years of HMRC dragging this out just rolling onto up to 30 years of wondering when the loan repayment demand will come in
• Taking legal actions against what really does appear to be fraud

I'd love to join. But after crashing out of contracting because of mental health issues (really not helped by this!) I have ended up in a minimum wage job, so I just don't have even moderate amounts of cash to be throwing around unless it's actually going to help.

Sorry if this question has been covered already, but I have been at this for hours already and if anyone tells me to read another novel length thread I swear I will scream!



(Also, I am sorry for not doing the whole "ask not what Big Group can do for you, but what you can do for Big Group" thing, but I'm already doing two big things for free alongside actual job and everything else, so I just don't have the bandwidth.)

[piebaps]

That depends on the trust law of the country where the trust was settled - broadly yes but check the small print.

[stonehenge]

Scheme providers such as Montpelier ( director and trustee is Edward Watkin Gittins – see other threads on this ) are threatening their former contractor clients with court action if they don’t make some repayments on the loans.

The clients are beneficiaries of the trust, right? Aren't trustees meant to act in their best interests?

[webberg]

Let's be clear here.

Big Group has a strategy and is following it.

We have no particular axe to grind against Montpelier and Mr Gittins or any other firm of individual involved in the schemes from the past.

We are objective and dispassionate and non judgmental about why people invented and offered schemes, why people joined them or subsequent actions from those firms and/or agents or factors who now have a position of control or influence.

We deal with the facts.

We deal with the situation in front of us and wherever possible include this in our over arching strategy.

Where there is a threat of loans being recalled, we will (and have) used our resources to investigate how, why and when this might happen and how that action might be legally resisted.

We have no opinion as to whether loan repayment threat is being driven by personal or financial motives.

So, whilst I welcome the comment above, please be aware that Big Group does not exist to bring to some form of "justice" any particular individual or firm.

[Geeptof]

Credit to Big Group /WTT for declaring the start of a very firm legal challenge to both HMRC and any trustee (loans scheme providers) threatening to demand repayment of loans - as announced on Contractor UK last week.

Why we’re taking HMRC to court over Loan Charge 2019, by WTT Consulting

This is a holistic no nonsense commitment to fight the 2 main threats affecting contractor loans.

Scheme providers such as Montpelier ( director and trustee is Edward Watkin Gittins – see other threads on this ) are threatening their former contractor clients with court action if they don’t make some repayments on the loans.

I hear that news of the very first court threat in December went viral and immediately started a very angry backlash against Gittins and his family who were all in business (and apparently did rather well out of all the contractors fees) from hundreds potentially affected, and with this latest Big Group announcement will now have thousands more people and their own families fighting against the Gittins.

Considering the loans were taken from the invoice fees generated by the contractors own consulting work you can understand why feelings are running so high.

Talk about crossing the line by a country mile.

[webberg]

Late yesterday afternoon, an agent acting for an IOM trustee, sent a communication to borrowers/beneficiaries of that trustee, indicating that action before the 31st January would be wise.

We have this morning issued a response to our members.

This will also shortly be on our forum.

If you have not received this or have further questions, please let us know through the usual channels.

[webberg]

All of the above observations are valid in their own way.

The really frustrating part is that HMRC - upon whom we should be able to rely in terms of integrity of numbers and probity of purpose - routinely present numbers and arguments in a manner that is at best disingenuous and at worst, false.

They deny the use of Behavioural Insights (see FOI requests) and claim that the materials they produce are all from internal sources.

There is an excellent piece on Linkedin presently from Keith Gordon QC which deconstructs the latest HMRC attempt (supported and repeated by MPs) at pulling the wool over the eyes of the taxpaying public, we are told HMRC is there to serve. I recommend a read of that.

Taxpayer agents, no doubt of the view that many people remain of the misguided opinion that HMRC does have high standards and always tell the truth and can therefore be trusted, have resorted to making similarly skewed and/or misleadingly accurate claims. This is does not enhance the professional standing of the agents but I can understand their position.

More importantly, as was demonstrated to us - again - late yesterday afternoon, it allows those who are not professionals but who have managed to acquire some form of interest in the situation, to make spurious claims and use scare tactics to leverage fees out of contractors for often entirely unnecssary actions.

We note with considerable regret that the levels to which HMRC has sunk in defending their campaign against contractors, has permitted those unscrupulous enough to think making money from misery is acceptable, a degree of credibility that they should not have.

We regularly report such instances to HMRC. The reaction? None at all.

An oft asked question of us is why HMRC did nothing if their view, then and now, is that the schemes never worked?

We explain that HMRC had no legal powers to do that.

The follow up is then, why are such schemes still allowed to operate? (Do a check on Google and you'll find dozens).

We can't answer that and HMRC, by debasing themselves by selective use of statistics, is not only standing back and allowing this to happen, but is actively encouraging it.

I'm not claiming that we are whiter than white here. We will stress parts of communications and allow others to fade. We always though try to present our arguments and positions objectively (accepting a bias). HMRC - in our opinion - does not.

We view HMRC as far from a bastion of integrity. Their maxim of "maximising revenue" has been allowed to corrupt them. It is alleged that their bullying and harassing treatment of taxpayers is reflected in an internal culture of bullying and discrimination. I have no evidence of that personally, but it is not a great leap to assuming that an organisation prepared to use underhand tactics (confident that elected officials will perjure themselves to protect them) would treat its staff in this way.

HMRC has had a major hand in creating the present situation and the sooner they recognise that and try to correct it, the better.

[Iliketax]

The money collected from "employers" is for OMB type EBTs and similar and not the mass marketed schemes

The schemes that most OMBs did were mass marketed. Typically, EBT or EFRBS based loan schemes.

Big picture, it's a numbers vs quantum thing. Let's say an IT contractor is "on" £80,000 per year and got £10,000 of that via a salary, £70,000 by way of a loan. The employer disappeared a long time ago so no NIC can be collected. The income tax "saved" will be something like £20,000. So the individual will pay £20,000 as a settlement.

Let's say an OMB owner got the same £10,000 salary but a £5,000,000 loan. That is £2,000,000 of tax saved, £50,000 employee's NIC plus £640,000 employer's NIC. So £2,690,000.

That means that one of my hypothetical OMBs is equivalent to 134 hypothetical contractors. And from what I see on these forums, the equivalent numbers for many contractors is much less than £20,000 of extra tax per year.

I made up the £5m loan per year for the OMB. So what's the right number? I don't know. But if I look at Dextra, it says:

By 2001 in total the companies had contributed £19.9m to the short-term funds of the EBT and £6.6m to the wealth creation scheme. ...

To be clear, not all of that was for loans. But how much more was put in after they won?

And if I look at Sempra Metals:

27. Details of the annual payments to the trustee were: ... Total £15.138M

Again, how much more was put in after they won?

And Murray Group:

6. The quantum of the fund movements gives an indication of the size of the scheme. The overall totals contributed into the main Trust were £55.5m and €5.3m,

Obviously, there is a question of how much cash HMRC actually got with this one.

Another company (Aberdeen Asset Management) was different but involved "soft loans (i.e. loans at low interest rates which will not be required to be repaid; the interest is not paid either or is funded by a further loan)":

5. The total amount of income tax claimed is in the order of about £5.4m. The amount of national insurance contributions claimed is in the order of about £1.6m

And while these may be larger than the average OMB type situation, they are far, far smaller than some of the ones that I am aware of.

So then the question is how many employer's did this? I don't know but at some time in 2014 HMRC said that there were 700 employers that had used the EFRBS resolution opportunity and that there were around 7,000 that had yet to settle (and many of those would not have done). There probably were many more EBTs. But who knows.

[piebaps]

There's also the "double count" Graham.

Some numbers can be used to justify a number of different work streams. The public sector is rife with these iffy claims.

For example, when dealing with benefit fraud, the DWP will claim success for identifying how much money they saved. The start with the amount which was fraudulently obtained and then add on a multiplier to try and forecast how long the fraudulent claim may have continued and how much more would have been paid. So fiddle £40k and they'll claim they recovered £65k. The reality is usually that they physically recover nothing.

You can see this in HMRC's accounts on page 21 https://assets.publishing.service.go...7-18__web_.pdf