Lying to Parliament?

**Old Greg** · 3 July 2018, 14:23

Originally posted by webberg View Post

Extract from Hansard today.

It appears Mr Stride thinks that illegality has occurred, despite the Supreme Court and HMRC always saying otherwise.

Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
To follow on from the question asked by the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), the retrospective nature of the 2019 loan charge could bankrupt thousands of people. Will the Government revise legislation to ensure that that does not happen, with the loan charge only applying to disguised remuneration loans made after the passing of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2017?

Mel Stride
This is not retrospective legislation. The activities and arrangements entered into by those who are in scope of this measure were not legal when they were entered into, even though they may have been entered into in the past. The loan charge is there not to apply penalties for that behaviour, but to ensure that those individuals pay the right amount of tax.

If Mr Stride thinks that illegality occurred, then how is he lying?

**starstruck** · 3 July 2018, 15:16

I can't believe he said that! Tax avoidance is not illegal! Once again the lines between tax evasion and tax avoidance are deliberately being blurred. So all those people that settled as part of CLSO1 were criminals who were let off were they?! And what about all the people applying for CLSO2 now, are they also criminals? According to Mel they are.

**QCApproved** · 3 July 2018, 15:17

All this time travel is bamboozling Mel - his line is becoming irrelevant as anyone who decomposes it can see its retrospective
However, he has made a statement that the schemes were "not legal" without any detail and what he means by that. One presumes he will be able to share what the statutory or case law basis for that is and when it applied from so that we can refer to them, and if not qualify or correct that statement
The chap is probably not the safest pair of hands for this omnishambles which is taking on water daily.

**Loan Ranger** · 3 July 2018, 15:52

Originally posted by webberg View Post

Extract from Hansard today.

It appears Mr Stride thinks that illegality has occurred, despite the Supreme Court and HMRC always saying otherwise.

Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
To follow on from the question asked by the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), the retrospective nature of the 2019 loan charge could bankrupt thousands of people. Will the Government revise legislation to ensure that that does not happen, with the loan charge only applying to disguised remuneration loans made after the passing of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2017?

Mel Stride
This is not retrospective legislation. The activities and arrangements entered into by those who are in scope of this measure were not legal when they were entered into, even though they may have been entered into in the past. The loan charge is there to give us a few £Bn windfall..

FTFH

**Pebbles** · 4 July 2018, 06:52

Follow up?

Perhaps Mr Aldous could be persuaded to ask a follow up question asking why it was illegal? And why Mr Stride is misleading Parliament.

**GreenMirror** · 4 July 2018, 07:55

I would like Mr Stride to think for himself and not just do everything HMRC tell him to.

**Calmbeforethestorm** · 4 July 2018, 08:37

Originally posted by webberg View Post

Extract from Hansard today.

It appears Mr Stride thinks that illegality has occurred, despite the Supreme Court and HMRC always saying otherwise.

Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
To follow on from the question asked by the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), the retrospective nature of the 2019 loan charge could bankrupt thousands of people. Will the Government revise legislation to ensure that that does not happen, with the loan charge only applying to disguised remuneration loans made after the passing of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2017?

Mel Stride

This is not retrospective legislation. The activities and arrangements entered into by those who are in scope of this measure were not legal when they were entered into, even though they may have been entered into in the past. The loan charge is there not to apply penalties for that behaviour, but to ensure that those individuals pay the right amount of tax.

IMHO he is unfortunately correct that the LC itself is not retrospective....they are smart.... its being applied in the future.

How he can say that paying IHT on wages is correct I dont know.

Obviously its ridiculous thats its taken so many years to come up with the wheeze... given that they think all loans over the last 20 years are caught...regardless of what type of scheme they may originate at that must be retrospective in effect if not in semantics.

**starstruck** · 4 July 2018, 10:18

Originally posted by Calmbeforethestorm View Post

IMHO he is unfortunately correct that the LC itself is not retrospective....they are smart.... its being applied in the future.

How he can say that paying IHT on wages is correct I dont know.

Obviously its ridiculous thats its taken so many years to come up with the wheeze... given that they think all loans over the last 20 years are caught...regardless of what type of scheme they may originate at that must be retrospective in effect if not in semantics.

I had loans around 20 years ago that were waived over a decade ago. The years are closed. The loans are gone. The lenders are gone. I owe no tax. I have no enquiries. But HMRC ignore waiving of loans, they only consider cash repayments. So when the LC2019 hits, I will have a tax bill of tens of thousands on these loans. HMRC/Mel Stride say I am free to repay them to avoid LC2019 ... but (if I wanted to) how exactly could I do that? I can't obviously as (a) they have been waived so there is zero balance to repay and (b) there is nobody to repay anyway.

How can that be anything other than a retrospective tax and now Mel is saying in Parliament, I have broken the law (whilst following the advice of a qualified accountant)!

**ChimpMaster** · 4 July 2018, 11:04

Originally posted by starstruck View Post

I had loans around 20 years ago that were waived over a decade ago. The years are closed. The loans are gone. The lenders are gone. I owe no tax. I have no enquiries. But HMRC ignore waiving of loans, they only consider cash repayments. So when the LC2019 hits, I will have a tax bill of tens of thousands on these loans. HMRC/Mel Stride say I am free to repay them to avoid LC2019 ... but (if I wanted to) how exactly could I do that? I can't obviously as (a) they have been waived so there is zero balance to repay and (b) there is nobody to repay anyway.

How can that be anything other than a retrospective tax and now Mel is saying in Parliament, I have broken the law (whilst following the advice of a qualified accountant)!

Similar situation to me.

It's interesting to note that the LC only applies to loans extant on April 2016 (or thereabouts, can't remember exact date). I too have no open loans because they were re-paid through some other mechanism (I paid a fee for this. I have no open enquiries etc and all scheme providers are gone and the Trust tells me they have destroyed all information > 6 years old.

HMRC want proof that the loans are no longer outstanding. The Trust won't give that proof because apparently they've destroyed this data (it's 10 years old).

So it feels like I'm stuck having to pay the tax on a loan on which there is no information anywhere - aside from the data that HMRC has on P11Ds and tax returns on which the loans were declared, and BIK paid, all those years ago. And of course, we can't offset the thousands in BIK paid.

Lying to Parliament?