Hoey - Court of Appeal legal fees

[starstruck]

Because if someone comes along with a tax problem - who else can we suggest?

Phil Manley?

Etc (who may or may not have screwed people by acting as a stooge for Felicitas while providing legal advice they may not have been authorised to provide)?

Can you see the problem?

And equally if I didn't actually check this forum and post exactly who else would - this forum isn't actually full of helpful people, most people here seem far happier insulting people who aren't part of their "gang" be it Big Group or those fundraising for Hoey.

Oh yes, I fell for the Phil Manley trap also. I paid him £500 I think for absolutely nothing of any value in return, other than some failed promises - plus a notice that his email account had been hacked and all the confidential information I'd sent him could have been taken!

But other than because everyone else you know is rubbish why are you actually recommending WTT/BG?

[eek]

What more has WTT done that the others haven't done? They are pretty good at keeping their clients in a holding pattern.

Do you have a phone number for Phil Manley? Given what I've said about ETC could you actually suggest to someone that they should use them?

You may dislike WTT so thank you for volunteering to answer all future "HMRC have sent me a letter" posts - I look forward to your responses and recommendations of other experts you can also find on google who will spend 30 minutes (for free) telling them what happened and what they need to do to fix it.

Oh and by the way you are doing a really bad job of explaining to people (especially Big Group members) why they should be giving Hoey money to continue their case.

[Superfly]

Because if someone comes along with a tax problem - who else can we suggest?

Phil Manley?

Etc (who may or may not have screwed people by acting as a stooge for Felicitas while providing legal advice they may not have been authorised to provide)?

Can you see the problem?

And equally if I didn't actually check this forum and post exactly who else would - this forum isn't actually full of helpful people, most people here seem far happier insulting people who aren't part of their "gang" be it Big Group or those fundraising for Hoey.

What more has WTT done that the others haven't done? They are pretty good at keeping their clients in a holding pattern.

[eek]

But why are you recommending WTT/BG?

Because if someone comes along with a tax problem - who else can we suggest?

Phil Manley?

Etc (who may or may not have screwed people by acting as a stooge for Felicitas while providing legal advice they may not have been authorised to provide)?

Can you see the problem?

And equally if I didn't actually check this forum and post exactly who else would - this forum isn't actually full of helpful people, most people here seem far happier insulting people who aren't part of their "gang" be it Big Group or those fundraising for Hoey.

[starstruck]

Nope - I'm usually here as I'm avoiding doing something I don't want to do (which today is calling umbrella firms and flogging them a new service).

And I actually don't like any tax adviser firm but given that every other one has fallen by the wayside, we are literally left with recommending WTT because ETC have seemingly completely screwed up anyone they "helped" with Felicitas (hmm I wonder why Steve Match recommended them so much), and exactly what did happened to the previous great white hope on this forum a certain Mr Phil Manley?

Basically the entire Tax avoidance industry is a nest of vipers that people have got involved in due to a combination of greed and a desire for a quick fix while ignoring difficult questions and answers.

Oh and would you care to guess who Steve Match actually worked for...

But why are you recommending WTT/BG?

Many years ago I'd assumed from reading webberg's posts on here that BG was a negotiated settlement with HMRC on favourable terms.

I called to find out more and was told details couldn't be revealed, but nothing in the call with Rhys made me think it wasn't what I thought it was. So I ended up joining (for a fee of a few hundred pounds I think) and was quite startled to then discover it was about fighting back in court; I distinctly remember feeling somewhat duped into joining.

The BG forum was very handy though and I was pleased to have somewhere I could turn to get advice from. I was asked to contribute thousands to join the resolution strategy but I never believed in it enough to join, it always seemed too wishy washy for me - all based on trust, a monthly newsletter saying all was progressing, but no substance in my eyes, lots of talk of barristers but no formal legal opinions provided to members etc. It was simply too opaque for me. Plus I could never get my head around how they could somehow litigate the hundreds of schemes that members are part of (which are all slightly different).

The years slipped by and in that time I learnt that if I had a question, I was more likely to get an answer on here from Webberg than by emailing WTT directly, which after a while started to annoy me. Webberg's posts here seemed to deliberately be to obfuscate and gain new business (e.g. the whole settlement is not an end to it argument that went on some years back) whilst on the BG forum the same questions were answered differently (e.g. settling will bring things to a conclusion). The mixed and inconsistent messaging frustrated me as it made it hard to know which side to believe.

Getting actual personal advice was almost impossible; because BG openly don't do that. e.g. try asking anything about a specific trust. Over the years, nothing visibly progressed that I could see, the monthly fees were adding up and it just became duplicate conversations on the BG forum and here; with lots of anonymous cross talk between the two. So even the forum seemed expensive.

More contributions were asked for on a few occasions for the resolution strategy, for thousands each time I think, but I remained out of that and I increasingly saw BG as being a money milking machine. I could see them growing, employing more people, venturing into IR35 advice, starting an umbrella company, a legal arm etc. I assumed all using funds being paid to WTT via BG; how else are they earning anything significant?

Then LCAG split out of BG, due to what it seemed to me to be to be a frustration with inaction on the part of WTT and BG. They achieved astonishing results and unbelievably as a result I fell out of scope of the LC myself. Suddenly I was mostly out of it all.

In my opinion, BG is definitely in cult territory, you can't criticise anything they do without being jumped on by fan boys and members just have to have faith, believe and keep paying. WTT/BG play the hero, saviour card when in fact they have just found a nice little earner. I suspect it will run for some more years, people will drop by the wayside and eventually it will all tumble at some point in court. In all these years, the only thing they have to show for all that BG money is the company they have built with it. There seems to be nothing else, at least not that I can see.

[eek]

Who, Eek, is “we” as in “we are literally left with recommending WTT”.

And given that you’ve had so much to say about so much it is absolutely astonishing that you don’t even know why the Transfer of Assets Abroad provisions are important.

It is, after all, only vital to the question of whether or not HMRC can tax individuals without recourse to their PAYE arguments (as they would be able to under Lancashire despite the FTT finding re s684(7A)). For clarity, IF there is income of the person abroad & those provisions are held to apply (as in Lancashire) then that too scuppers the whole BG strategy before it starts.

Might I therefore suggest that you spend less time on here pontificating on these issues and drumming up business for someone in case people listen to you in the mistaken belief that you have a basic understanding of what you’re talking about?

Oh, and for the record, again, I get absolutely nothing out of anything raised for Mr Hoey.

For we - assume myself and the mods on this site.

As for the rest - you are asking for people without tax and legal expertise who have put their faith in another expert because they don't understand the finer details (and this is not about fine details it's about tiny minutia) to give someone else money as this case will solve all (or at least some of their problems for them). Yet no one has at any point in this thread explained why it's so important in words a none expert can understand. Heck, I've had difficulty working out what the case will decide upon as you haven't explained any of it.

And at long last in that post you are finally starting to explain things in a way that I think people may be able to understand. Now it's still not clear enough (and the personal insults are getting beyond annoying) so perhaps you could explain to others why HMRC are trying to tax individuals directly without recourse to their PAYE arguments.

Throughout all this I'm merely trying to get you to do what you should have done here in the first place - which is to assume people have zero knowledge and provide an explanation in very simple terms on why they should be giving this case their money. And until now you've completely failed to do that.

[ns1]

But I had thought it was well known that HMRC ensure the cases they believe are easier wins are heard first as it narrows down possible conversations - and with this case in progress HMRC will be delaying all others until there is an actual determination that can be used.

Spot on.

Once Hoey is out of the way, WTT will crush HMRC.

Mark my word, BG members will have the last laugh.

[Saleos]

Nope - I'm usually here as I'm avoiding doing something I don't want to do (which today is calling umbrella firms and flogging them a new service).

And I actually don't like any tax adviser firm but given that every other one has fallen by the we are literally left with recommending WTT because ETC have seemingly completely screwed up anyone they "helped" with Felicitas (hmm I wonder why Steve Match recommended them so much), and exactly what did happened to the previous great white hope on this forum a certain Mr Phil Manley?

Basically the entire Tax avoidance industry is a nest of vipers that people have got involved in due to a combination of greed and a desire for a quick fix while ignoring difficult questions and answers.

Oh and would you care to guess who Steve Match actually worked for...

Who, Eek, is “we” as in “we are literally left with recommending WTT”.

And given that you’ve had so much to say about so much it is absolutely astonishing that you don’t even know why the Transfer of Assets Abroad provisions are important.

It is, after all, only vital to the question of whether or not HMRC can tax individuals without recourse to their PAYE arguments (as they would be able to under Lancashire despite the FTT finding re s684(7A)). For clarity, IF there is income of the person abroad & those provisions are held to apply (as in Lancashire) then that too scuppers the whole BG strategy before it starts.

Might I therefore suggest that you spend less time on here pontificating on these issues and drumming up business for someone in case people listen to you in the mistaken belief that you have a basic understanding of what you’re talking about?

Oh, and for the record, again, I get absolutely nothing out of anything raised for Mr Hoey.

[Fred Bloggs]

It's equally possible that ETC are completely innocent here - given the date that we discovered the issue (late August) it's hard to work out what come first - etc issuing the free template letters or Mr Match recommending them.

Either way it does seem that Felicitas seems to have been happy to make very low ball settlement offers knowing that most people would ignore them and have since become a lot more ruthless in their approach.

Absolutely agree with you. But you'll never know the truth unless you meet them in a pub, get them a bit tipsy and they tell you. And I doubt that will happen.

[eek]

On the assumption that ETC Tax is an otherwise reputable company, and given the corkscrew like tactics displayed by protagonists throughout these sorry episodes - Perhaps ETC Tax may have been misled into doing something? Disclaimer, I know nothing about this company.

It's equally possible that ETC are completely innocent here - given the date that we discovered the issue (late August) it's hard to work out what come first - etc issuing the free template letters or Mr Match recommending them.

Either way it does seem that Felicitas seems to have been happy to make very low ball settlement offers knowing that most people would ignore them and have since become a lot more ruthless in their approach.