Reply to: A First for HMRC

[BrilloPad]

Attempting to bribe one of Her Majesty's Tax Inspectors with unnatural favours!

This isn't band camp, Brillo. There are rules!!

What sort of unnatural favours did you have in mind?

[Old Greg]

Do you mind! It was section 4.....

Attempting to bribe one of Her Majesty's Tax Inspectors with unnatural favours!

This isn't band camp, Brillo. There are rules!!

[SueEllen]

I wonder which ways people will do it? The easy one seems to be furloughing staff and keeping them working, with them implicit "you need to help us out" or simply ignorant.

Any more interesting ways? The "oh we were going to give everyone pay-rises in March" angle seems a bit too obvious.

Isn't that crooked?

Far better to furlough them for 3-4 days then make an excuse so they have to come back to work after that...

[dx4100]

But people were unable to find work approach xmas because of the market down turn. Ability to find work IMO is not a direct impact compared to people that have lost jobs or income. You face market forces all the time, 4 months ago it was xmas, now it's the virus, another time it will be something else. Not a direct impact.

In your opinion

[d000hg]

I wonder which ways people will do it? The easy one seems to be furloughing staff and keeping them working, with them implicit "you need to help us out" or simply ignorant.

Any more interesting ways? The "oh we were going to give everyone pay-rises in March" angle seems a bit too obvious.

[BrilloPad]

Fraud is such an ugly word:

I belong to the Oude Joris Max 120 Executive Club
You are a bent contractor
Brillo has been charged under Section 3 of the Criminal Finances Act (2017)

Do you mind! It was section 4.....

[Old Greg]

Fraud is always a mistake!

Fraud is such an ugly word:

I belong to the Oude Joris Max 120 Executive Club
You are a bent contractor
Brillo has been charged under Section 3 of the Criminal Finances Act (2017)

[northernladuk]

Wrong. Under instruction from our government people are unable to leave their homes except for specific purposes, so everyone is personally and directly impacted by the virus. Finding new work is not an acceptable reason to leave the home under the lockdown.

Plenty of different ways around that. It's not a total blocker.

So let me add a word in and say your job has been impacted. If you didn't have one before then you haven't been directly impacted. If you can't find work cause the market is on it's arse you've indirectly been impacted, just like you do at xmas break, holiday season and economic down turns.

I'm not saying people that didn't have a job before need help or anything daft like that. Just trying to clarify the difference between impacts.

[KinooOrKinog]

Which is probably their mistake. If you have an idea, just do it. If you feel the need to discuss it, it is probably nonsense and should not be done.

Fraud is always a mistake!

[CheeseSlice]

The market has been impacted by the virus and you are part of that market. Have you personally been directly impacted? No.

Wrong. Under instruction from our government people are unable to leave their homes except for specific purposes, so everyone is personally and directly impacted by the virus. Finding new work is not an acceptable reason to leave the home under the lockdown.

[MrMarkyMark]

Has anything like this been discussed or ideas/thoughts been given yet or aren't we there yet?

Nope and I doubt there will be, as it would be too complex to administer for the reasons you alluded too.

Rishi did suggest there would be some levelling up for the self employed, ironically, to align with Perm tax once this is over. He made this clear, when originally talking about the available money.

I'm guessing there won't really be much of an issue there, as apart from the building trade, most of the true self employed will be bust, by then, in any case.

To be honest, the government hates the self employed, as much as they hate contractors, far too difficult to administrate/compute, so they won't really give a sh1t about them going bust anyway.

Very short sighted and very sad, imo, but then I'm not a career politician

[northernladuk]

My situation is more complicated.

IR35 / Brexit/poor market killed me last year, from getting any contract work, in fact I had 4 things turn belly up.

This year I landed a bit of technical writing work, I could put through on a self employed basis, this was directly affected as the conferences for the organisation were then cancelled. I didn't want to put this through my Ltd, as it was just a few weeks work to start with.

Obviously, I have been paying myself via small PAYE and dividends, from my LTD, whilst looking for any other contract opportunities.

If I was to claim, it could be £500 PM from the LTD, the secondary work would pay sweet FA, even though that was directly affected.

So, not always simple for all, I guess.

Yep and there will always be grey areas but I think the difference between being in work and it getting curtailed because of covid and already being out of work and not being able to find one during the situation are quite different.

I must admit I've been wondering if there is any discussion about how we pay this all back. I guess we've got that hurt to go through later but if the gov might intend to differentiate between those that got the hand outs and those that didn't when looking at the situation. If those that claimed it had a different tax code and had to pay more back in than those that didn't it might make the decision of whether someone claims or not. If you've got a contractor with a large warchest thinking they might have a piece of free money as currently being discussed they may think twice about claiming if they know they will eventually end up paying it back anyway. That said a permie being furloughed might not be too impressed they have to pay it back so swings and roundabouts as always.

Has anything like this been discussed or ideas/thoughts been given yet or aren't we there yet?

[MrMarkyMark]

But people were unable to find work approach xmas because of the market down turn. Ability to find work IMO is not a direct impact compared to people that have lost jobs or income. You face market forces all the time, 4 months ago it was xmas, now it's the virus, another time it will be something else. Not a direct impact.

My situation is more complicated.

IR35 / Brexit/poor market killed me last year, from getting any contract work, in fact I had 4 things turn belly up.

This year I landed a bit of technical writing work, I could put through on a self employed basis, this was directly affected as the conferences for the organisation were then cancelled. I didn't want to put this through my Ltd, as it was just a few weeks work to start with.

Obviously, I have been paying myself via small PAYE and dividends, from my LTD, whilst looking for any other contract opportunities.

If I was to claim, it could be £500 PM from the LTD, the secondary work would pay sweet FA, even though that was directly affected.

So, not always simple for all, I guess.

[BrilloPad]

Well let's face it, there's already been more than a few on here discussing ways they could try fiddling it

Which is probably their mistake. If you have an idea, just do it. If you feel the need to discuss it, it is probably nonsense and should not be done.

I wish I had posted here about my marriage plans....

[KinooOrKinog]

Well, makes a big change for them to be pursuing actual criminals for once, I guess




Fraudsters likely to target furlough scheme, says HMRC chief | Politics | The Guardian

Well let's face it, there's already been more than a few on here discussing ways they could try fiddling it