HMRC Consultative Document - marketed tax avoidance schemes

[varunksingh]

WHS

WHS means?

[TheDandy]

1) Whether it is legal or not to apply it retrospectively. For example UKBA lost in court when they change immigration laws retrospectively. Here they are changing how DOTAS is acted up and applying it to old existing cases. All DOTAS schemes are being declared that they did not work and tax payers will be required to pay. Only if tax payer is able take HMRC to court, exhaust all appeal options only than money will be given back.

2) Failure notice provisions and DOTAS extension MIGHT be against the natural justice. In affect HMRC is punishing tax payer even before Tax payer has been proven guilty. From one of the earlier posts
"
"No man in this country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or to his property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel into his stores."
Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services v Ritchie v CIR CS 1929 14 TC 754, Lord Clyde.
"

That's all well and good and perfectly reasoned arguments, but it doesn't change the fundamental purpose of this legislation and that's to get the money in first in an unfettered way. Sure you can run the court process from different angles if you want, but whichever line of tack you take, it will take forever to get a resolution one way or another. In the meantime your money will be theirs in practical reality and you'll have little chance of getting it back. You have to hope that a swathe of backbenchers throw a fit on this!

[TheDandy]

WHS means?

What he said!

[ScottW]

That's all well and good and perfectly reasoned arguments, but it doesn't change the fundamental purpose of this legislation and that's to get the money in first in an unfettered way. Sure you can run the court process from different angles if you want, but whichever line of tack you take, it will take forever to get a resolution one way or another. In the meantime your money will be theirs in practical reality and you'll have little chance of getting it back. You have to hope that a swathe of backbenchers throw a fit on this!

So if this is the way HMRC are approaching it are we seriously being told we need to pay what we are told regardless of their calculations being clearly wrong and in many cases stupidly so?

Is there any value in querying the sums and asking for calculations so the figures can actually be correct even though actual payment is disputed and appeals currently lodged.

If the figures are clearly stupidly incorrect and payment is still insisted then the simple thing to do for many is simply leave the country.

Seriously.

[eek]

So if this is the way HMRC are approaching it are we seriously being told we need to pay what we are told regardless of their calculations being clearly wrong and in many cases stupidly so?

Is there any value in querying the sums and asking for calculations so the figures can actually be correct even though actual payment is disputed and appeals currently lodged.

If the figures are clearly stupidly incorrect and payment is still insisted then the simple thing to do for many is simply leave the country.

Seriously.

Well you have until July / August to get the calculations correct because that is when they will send the bills and then 90 days from that to pay them.

But as I said earlier today and it became far clearer in the pub tonight this will become law. No MP is going to argue against this with an election coming up (HMRC are striking when the iron is hot).

[malvolio]

So if this is the way HMRC are approaching it are we seriously being told we need to pay what we are told regardless of their calculations being clearly wrong and in many cases stupidly so?

Is there any value in querying the sums and asking for calculations so the figures can actually be correct even though actual payment is disputed and appeals currently lodged.

If the figures are clearly stupidly incorrect and payment is still insisted then the simple thing to do for many is simply leave the country.

Seriously.

Jeez, get real. If it is incorrect, and you can prove it, then you get it back in reasonably short order plus statutory interest at something above commercial rates. A minor hiccup in the annual cash flow, that's all.

Of course, if you can't prove it...

[rufusTfirefly]

Well you have until July / August to get the calculations correct because that is when they will send the bills and then 90 days from that to pay them

So they will be sending 16000 "bills" out in July / August ?

[ScottW]

Jeez, get real. If it is incorrect, and you can prove it, then you get it back in reasonably short order plus statutory interest at something above commercial rates. A minor hiccup in the annual cash flow, that's all.

Of course, if you can't prove it...

OK - that's fair enough - although surely it would make sense to ensure the demand was a least correct even if appealed.

Recent reading of some posts would seem to indicate HMRC would have the right to demand your first born and you may not see them again till their 18th birthday.

A bit like sending your kids to Eton......

[ramzanamin]

Jeez, get real. If it is incorrect, and you can prove it, then you get it back in reasonably short order plus statutory interest at something above commercial rates. A minor hiccup in the annual cash flow, that's all.

Of course, if you can't prove it...

How would you get it back in short order when the ligislation suggests otherwise?

[malvolio]

How would you get it back in short order when the ligislation suggests otherwise?

No it doesn't. It's talking about "disputed" tax. Prove them wrong and it's no longer disputed and no longer tax.

IF you 're going to argue the point, at least understand the questions.