Phil - 'The Tax guy' (the rather dull and underwhelming sequel)

[dammit chloe]

For me, and I suspect many others, his credibility has gone. Many of the original schemes were sold as a way to get around IR35. What he's done is come on here, grab a load of business, realise he can make more money through an offshore scheme and start to flog it. Ironically he blasts the loan charge on twitter despite the fact he will have made a lot of money out of this.

If you're suggesting slagging Mel Stride around 50 times a day is "unsung" stuff then I suggest you have a particularly low standard of hero.

You need to sit down and have a nice cup of tea. Oh, and stop massively exaggerating or making stuff up.

[stonehenge]

Well, it doesn't come much plainer than this, the first part of the spotlight notice from HMRC -

Quite honestly, anyone who takes on board the Cyprus scheme on top of all the other stuff that's happened needs locking away for their own safety. IMHO.

Using a scheme to circumvent primary anti-avoidance legislation (LC) is likely to end very badly.

I would expect HMRC to use the GAAR to clobber it, with maximum penalties.

HMRC brings GAAR and tax avoidance rules back in the spotlight

[Invisiblehand]

You need to sit down and have a nice cup of tea. Oh, and stop massively exaggerating or making stuff up.

Which bit did I make up?

[WalterWhite]

I'm a mind reader! Disguised remuneration: schemes claiming to avoid the loan charge (Spotlight 49) - GOV.UK



Just in relation to the "mind reader" comment: I do not (and have not) worked for HMRC, I was not told by HMRC that there was going to be a spotlight (nor did they send me a copy) but the keystroke logger does seem to be working well.

Surely if they believe it doesn't work, HMRC will charge Phil under the Promoter legislation they claim to be using?

[Iliketax]

Surely if they believe it doesn't work, HMRC will charge Phil under the Promoter legislation they claim to be using?

The promoter legislation is not a criminal bit of legislation and so "charge" is not the right word.

Also, this is UK legislation rather than legislation that can Cypriot legislation. But I have no idea who is actually promoting what, or in what capacity, and have no idea whether anything was promoted in the UK before the beers were bought.

The other thing is that people may well be scammed before 6 April and any tribunal decision would be too late for them.

[Invisiblehand]

While many would agree with some of the tweet stuff including myself, Phil has been doing all sorts of unsung stuff behind the scenes. Don't expect everything to be explicitly communicated though, why tell HMRC what you are doing unless you want them to know.

Still no news on what the gran plan is? What was the Big Thing you have been talking about?

If the plan is to just give Mel Stride tulip on twitter then he's worth every penny. If it's for something a little more grown up then I'm not so sure.

[GammaMadrid]

Promoters penalties mean it’s physically impossible for Phil or anyone to make a penny from any scheme that doesn’t work and insella was brought out after the legislation (unlike vanquish and all the others) so clearly Phil believes it works.

[Iliketax]

Promoters penalties mean it’s physically impossible for Phil or anyone to make a penny from any scheme that doesn’t work and insella was brought out after the legislation (unlike vanquish and all the others) so clearly Phil believes it works.

No idea about Phil's position or what Phil believes. But the rest of what you have written is bo!!ocks.

A "promoter" in UK tax legislation means something very different to what promoter means in the normal world.

If the promoter was in the UK, had £1m of assets and HMRC was successful in showing that they were a "promoter" (as defined in tax legislation) then you may be right. But if the (tax defined) "promoter" was in (say) Cyprus then they would be outside of the UK promoter rules.

If the promoter were in the UK and only had £17 of net assets (like Hyrax Resourcing seems to have per its latest accounts) then £1m of fines will not make a practical difference. How does a "successful" promoter end up with only a few assets? Maybe they pay someone else who is not a promoter (per tax legislation) but is a promoter in the real world sense, a lot of money?

[webberg]

Promoters penalties mean it’s physically impossible for Phil or anyone to make a penny from any scheme that doesn’t work and insella was brought out after the legislation (unlike vanquish and all the others) so clearly Phil believes it works.

Not sure I would agree with that.

POTAS rules, apart from being UK centric, are only ever going to be applied in arrears.

By the time HMRC has found the resource to investigate, suffered the inevitable delays caused by moving away people who investigate and replacing them with somebody who starts again, finds anybody in HMRC who understands the loan schemes well enough to understand this proposed counter, we're looking at a point well into late 2020 perhaps 2021.

HMRC then has the unenviable task of going through the assessment/appeal/decision process which may require another few years.

We saw all of this with DOTAS. Many of the promoters who sold schemes, disclosed or not, were long out of reach by the time HMRC got its act together.

[Invisiblehand]

Promoters penalties mean it’s physically impossible for Phil or anyone to make a penny from any scheme that doesn’t work and insella was brought out after the legislation (unlike vanquish and all the others) so clearly Phil believes it works.

He's definitely not doing it out of the kindness of his heart.