IQ Consultants, Felicitas Solutions, ECS Trustees - loan repayment demands

[Tickedoff]

Hello @webberg, I have received this letter. How do I join the Big Group?

Hi, how do I join Big Group? I received the same letters demanding payment of interest or a settlement amount.

[webberg]

Newbie here, I’ve also received a letter from Gladstones. Absolutely horrible. I feel like I want to dispute, but also to ignore.

Could there be any sort of chance that they’re in collusion with HMRC?

Absolutely no chance of being in league with HMRC

[webberg]

Question...

At the end of my stay with IQ I received a P45. Surely that’s proof enough that I was employed by them and that those payments highlighted as ‘IQ Consultants Ltd’ on my statement was in fact my salary?

A P45 records taxable pay and tax paid.

Did that include the loans?

If it did not, then at the time you treated the money as something other than pay?

If so, what did you treat it as?

[webberg]

I don’t, but ECS are listed under the Panama Papers. Courts would love to know these corrupt offshore firms are the ones wanting to wrongly claim back the loans.

I'm not trying to defend the actions of ECS (indeed we are working behind the scenes on that one) but if you are going to dispute anything here, you need to get your facts straight.

Baker Tilly in Douglas IOM is part of Baker Tilly International. They are a global accounting and tax advisory group based outside the UK.

(There was a Baker Tilly in the UK but they were a separate outfit and now I think no longer using that name).

The offshore entities operate in many jurisdictions which also host trusts and holding companies and other vehicles that the wealthy regularly use for a variety of purposes.

Consequently, service providers like Baker Tilly provide trust and corporate services to that population.

ECS is one such. It is a licensed (by the IOM FSA) trust and corporate services provider and is used by Baker Tilly to generate fees from that activity.

That service is largely administrative and regulatory.

I would be surprised if it included executive decision making, i.e. a decision to dispose/disperse trust assets. That decision would have been made by either the settlor of the trust (i.e. the party who originally funded it) or their successors.

You therefore need to spend your energy tracking down those people and then asking why they issued instructions to the service provider that may, possibly, be in breach of trust law. You might also ask whether ECS challenged the instruction coming to them or examined whether the action requested was in breach of trust law and/or their license terms.

I'm sure Baker Tilly of 2A Lord St, Douglas IOM have a website and contact details. Just as I'm sure Baker Tilly International have a reputation to protect and also a website and contact details.

[webberg]

Sounds like this new dodgy outfit need to be reported to HMRC seeing as they are so keen on prosecuting scheme promotors,

What?

[Wazza1882]

A P45 records taxable pay and tax paid.

Did that include the loans?

If it did not, then at the time you treated the money as something other than pay?

If so, what did you treat it as?

To be perfectly honest, I don't know. I was young and naive and didn't know what this company was doing. I was told they could process my pay for me and I would get a good percentage with all taxes taken care of. Silly me.

What I do know is that I worked for a client (in this case LBG), they paid an agency, the agency paid IQ and IQ paid me a full single amount every month (within hours) which was what I understood to be my take home pay with everything taken care of.

I don't remember signing anything major and if memory serves me right then I only remember an extract of the signature page for speed in order to "start processing your pay immediately".

I have sought advice, but having read the forums here I can see reasons why this can be serious and also read very valid reasons why it would be a scam or phishing on the vulnerable exercise that couldn't really stand up in court.

Also I am on the fence with ignoring the letter (2nd class, not recorded, "never received it", no actual evidence of the signed loan agreements and not wanting to confirm my availability, location) and with disputing it (Sending an official letter to put the wind up them with regards to FCA regulations and ask for the actual signed agreements and proof that exists and is actually a proper loan as per loan regulations).

I am happy to join a Big Group to fight this as a whole, please include me in any discussions. For now, I will wait until I receive some advice from WTT and EtcTax.

[Socialsarah73]

Did anyone receive a PD11 from them in Jan 2017 showing BIK - Think this was a new strategy they tried.

[78paul]

Ignore or dispute...?

I was thinking the same, it was not a recorded delivery letter...
What if you no longer live at that address?
What if you are now a landlord to that address and your tenants did not pass this letter on to you?
Or, if you are in the process of moving from that address and are soon to no longer be there, should you inform them of your new address?

To dispute it, is not necessarily to wind them up for to just ask for more information, none of the "loan" amounts have dates against them yet they have loan interest charges applied.. When exactly were those amounts paid to me?
How did they come up with those interest rates?
Why did I never receive monthly reports of interest? And ways of which to be paying them?

I will try and seek some legal advice today and will be looking at what is discussed on here. I think this could be too much for a single person along and to join a group (Big Group) would be a good idea considering they know of these things.

Also, what IF you decide to pay them what is asked... How can you be 110% certain that that will be the end of it? To be able to wipe your hands of the whole thing and move on...

[DealorNoDeal]

I'd love to see them try and legally enforce those loans.
. Any court would see it's nothing more than window dressing for disguised remuneration. The fact that HMRC have deemed it DR, and you've paid tax on that basis, confirms this.

[Wazza1882]

I was thinking the same, it was not a recorded delivery letter...
What if you no longer live at that address?
What if you are now a landlord to that address and your tenants did not pass this letter on to you?
Or, if you are in the process of moving from that address and are soon to no longer be there, should you inform them of your new address?

To dispute it, is not necessarily to wind them up for to just ask for more information, none of the "loan" amounts have dates against them yet they have loan interest charges applied.. When exactly were those amounts paid to me?
How did they come up with those interest rates?
Why did I never receive monthly reports of interest? And ways of which to be paying them?

I will try and seek some legal advice today and will be looking at what is discussed on here. I think this could be too much for a single person along and to join a group (Big Group) would be a good idea considering they know of these things.

Also, what IF you decide to pay them what is asked... How can you be 110% certain that that will be the end of it? To be able to wipe your hands of the whole thing and move on...

Yes those points above and one thing that struck me about how the loans were listed in my letter.

It seems I had 4-5 big loans with them that equate to a certain period and a certain trust, but I don't remember signing a loan agreement for these 4-5 individual big loans. I just received monthly payments for work I did.