Latest misinformation

[LadyPenelope]

Indeed
I can't speak for other people
but i know 3 people who would have not gone ahead having seen such a statement I'm sure including themselves everyone is aware of the same kind of number
Allied to this we should have had a paragraph:
"Please note any contractor tempted to use a loan scheme should bear in mind that IR35 is effectively unenforceable by us"

Add another one to that. As soon as I found out all was not as it seemed and that HMRC did not approve these schemes I quit right away. Tax avoidance used to be considered quite legitimate 10 years ago. Different times.

[Fred Bloggs]

Add another one to that. As soon as I found out all was not as it seemed and that HMRC did not approve these schemes I quit right away. Tax avoidance used to be considered quite legitimate 10 years ago. Different times.

Really, tax avoidance is for rich people. When ordinary folk start doing it, it becomes unacceptable and has to be stamped out before the entire country is being remunerated that way. It's simple.

[northernladuk]

When you live on CUK 24/7, it's easy to forget that CUK is not representartive of the contractor world at large. It's a particular type of contractor that even makes it to CUK.
Meanwhile, there is a worldful of contractors out there who, granted, made a catastrophically wrong risk assessment a decade or so ago, but are largely risk-averse and would have run a mile if sent a link like this. Most were sold on the "it's all disclosed to HMRC, it's low admin (i.e. it's risk-free and you have nothing to do)" line.
I said it before, I'll say it again: to issue such a "warning" after firebombing the whole place for a year with retrospective APNs is adding insult to injury.

I get that but I don't think we can categorise people in to CUKers and not. IMO there are more than enough contractors that just don't have a clue and follow blindly to make that number unrealistic. A very crude example is the numbers that use umbrellas for no other reason than they haven't been arsed to understand what they are doing. I know some people need umbrellas but there are more than enough using them that really shouldn't.

I do agree many would have been put off but I just can't see 99% at all.

[DotasScandal]

Really, tax avoidance is for rich people. When ordinary folk start doing it, it becomes unacceptable and has to be stamped out before the entire country is being remunerated that way. It's simple.

Maybe you want to borrow HMRC's time machine and go back to 2000 to bless them with your advice.

[Fred Bloggs]

Maybe you want to borrow HMRC's time machine and go back to 2000 to bless them with your advice.

Rich people always have and always will avoid tax. I have some sympathy for the victims here, they believed they were avoiding IR35 by and large. But to think suddenly you can behave like Richard Branson or Phillip Green on your £100k a year turn over is quite frankly too ridiculous to comprehend. It was always going to be a train crash this one.

[webberg]

In response to "Iliketax" question a page or two back that has got buried in noise.

Why is the statement about "all contractor loan schemes should be disclosed" potentially misleading?

Because:

1. No scheme has yet been shown to create a tax advantage (other than the arguably fraudulent Boyle case)
2. The "disguised remuneration" or "payment via third parties" rules don't work well with the DOTAS hallmarks, in 2006 or now.
3. HMRC has admitted, by withdrawing APNs, that some disclosed schemes are not in fact "notifiable".

I would agree that the current batch of schemes and the current DOTAS regulations are a closer match than historically has been the case, but to extrapolate from that into the past, is misleading.

The really terrifying part is that in a couple of years time, a Tribunal judge, perhaps chosen for their inexperience and desire to climb the greasy pole, will look at this sort of statement, assume it reflects what HMRC has been saying for 15 years and apply it to circumstances that are inappropriate.

[LadyPenelope]

Really, tax avoidance is for rich people. When ordinary folk start doing it, it becomes unacceptable and has to be stamped out before the entire country is being remunerated that way. It's simple.

Really, it's a question of legal vs illegal. Avoidance is legal and always has been.

It would have been difficult to predict the application of law retrospectively in this regard, since this has been highly unusual in the past. Indeed, if the illegality of the schemes was that easy to prove, HMRC would have proved it already and gone after us all with follower notices, and not bothered issuing APN's on the basis that they think they are entitled to it, but haven't proved it legally yet. Nor would they have employed psychologists to word the Settlement communications.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

It is a bit late to be issuing stark warnings about loan schemes now.

The warning will be lost on anyone still using these schemes because you'd have to be as dumb as pig tulip to carry on in the current climate.

[Fred Bloggs]

Really, it's a question of legal vs illegal. Avoidance is legal and always has been.

It would have been difficult to predict the application of law retrospectively in this regard, since this has been highly unusual in the past. Indeed, if the illegality of the schemes was that easy to prove, HMRC would have proved it already and gone after us all with follower notices, and not bothered issuing APN's on the basis that they think they are entitled to it, but haven't proved it legally yet. Nor would they have employed psychologists to word the Settlement communications.

I don't have an argument with you really. But again, I say when ordinary folk think they can behave like billionaires, treating tax as an optional extra, something has gone badly wrong.

[Fred Bloggs]

It is a bit late to be issuing stark warnings about loan schemes now.

The warning will be lost on anyone still using these schemes because you'd have to be as dumb as pig tulip to carry on in the current climate.

The only reason I can see for folks carrying on is that they are simply in it too deep. In that situation I think I would be looking into a total and probably permanent move to a jurisdiction beyond HMRC reach, if such a place still exists.