Reply to: Churchill Knight & Boox clients being investigated as Managed Service Companies

[GregRickshaw]

Yip sums it perfectly do the right thing, don't use dodgy umbrellas (linked to loans, EBT and Trusts) use LTD and get yourself a FCA accountant and have them do virtually nothing but your books and here we are....

I'd love to believe it's utter incompetence but we never knows with Hector.

They win by getting us to shoot ourselves in the foot, sing like canaries, (Remember the famous 'based on information received' in the original claims?) giving them all the information they need so they have to do very little to claim a sizeable amount of money to enable further attacks but most importantly they will do anything they can to get the legislation they want.

[Hareforthebear]

To engage or not to engage with HMRC that is the question

HMRC did not issue the debt transfer notice to directors of around 400 LTDs who failed to 'appeal/acknowledge/chucked in the bin' the PAYE determination demands from HRMC in time and therefore the deadline has now passed.

So when HMRC win and issue bills to those LTDs the debt stops at the company and cannot be transferred to the directors.

Those of you who did appeal in a timely manner, complying and working with HMRC what were you thinking?

That’s outrageous. To think I could’ve just binned it and moved on with my life. We are punished for trying to do the right thing, much like what started this mess, by engaging an accountant to ensure I remained compliant.

Surely that works against their planned argument in some way? They’re not taking necessary actions to protect those claims, doesn’t that somewhat invalidate ours to a degree?

[GregRickshaw]

When I got the email about that yesterday my mutterings were very impolite and cannot be repeated on here.

Such a farce.

Part of me wonders though whether many of the determinations never went to the intended target or failed to arrive so HMRC didn't get a response and assumed the receiver was dead.

Some of me believes it to be typical HMRC under-resourced, under experienced incompetence.

Most of me believes it was a deliberate sharpening of the knives.

The primary goal of this raid is for HMRC to get legislation in their favour, the collected money will pay for the staff involved in the investigation but the legislation will give HMRC carte blanche and effectively further signal the death knell of PSC style LTDs.

[Lotok]

When I got the email about that yesterday my mutterings were very impolite and cannot be repeated on here.

Such a farce.

[GregRickshaw]

To engage or not to engage with HMRC that is the question

The answer seems to be pretty straight forward. Engage with HMRC and one gets shafted royally for many years mentally and financially.

Ignore HMRC and one is home scott free

News of the latest farce in the MSC, or deliberate move to concentrate resources came this week in a FOI appeal to HMRC, which revealed HMRC issued zero debt transfer notices to the companies who had not appealed their determinations.

HMRC did not issue the debt transfer notice to directors of around 400 LTDs who failed to 'appeal/acknowledge/chucked in the bin' the PAYE determination demands from HRMC in time and therefore the deadline has now passed.

So when HMRC win and issue bills to those LTDs the debt stops at the company and cannot be transferred to the directors.

Those of you who did appeal in a timely manner, complying and working with HMRC what were you thinking?

[jamesbrown]

Summary of the situation (one opinion, but sounds about right):

https://www.contractoruk.com/news/00..._and_long.html

[GregRickshaw]

An advert for Osborne Clarke basically

[eek]

Quick google, found this
https://www.osborneclarke.com/insigh...rangements-and

Which tells me nothing other than the random opinion of what someone in Osbourne Clark thinks HMRC may do...

It doesn't say anything like SwissSaffa is implying - all it says is the rather obvious point that MSC legislation may be used again if the rules end up tightened again.

[Lotok]

Quick google, found this
https://www.osborneclarke.com/insigh...rangements-and

…and IR35, the agency workers tax regime and MSC?


In the meantime, HMRC is likely to significantly increase IR35 enforcement activity, use its powers under the agency worker tax regime (which in many ways is a better tool for HMRC than IR35) more widely, and apply pressure on contractor models by continuing action under the managed service company (MSC) regime. Each of these existing tax regimes already allow HMRC to target what it sees as false self-employment arrangements.

Might this increased activity, perhaps with extra funding for HMRC enforcement teams from a new government, be enough to eradicate (without new legislation) a lot of what may be seen as "bogus self-employment"?

[eek]

Looks like the new government is going to make things for MSC victims a whole hell of a lot worse if you read the Osbourne Clark article

What Osbourne Clark article?

[SwissSaffa]

Looks like the new government is going to make things for MSC victims a whole hell of a lot worse if you read the Osbourne Clark article

[jamesbrown]

Ah well we've said nearly everything which can be said

Very true

[GregRickshaw]

They can only assess 4 years back under discovery.

If they win against you guys, you can bet your bottom dollar they'll try and find a way of making the judgment fit other accountancy arrangements. Just like they made the CBS win fit CK and Boox.

Agreed 100% the shoe-horn approach is HMRC's bread and butter.

Ah well we've said nearly everything which can be said. Now we wait and wait and wait and wait.

HMRC do have a very nasty habit of ignoring retrospective rules mind.

[woody1]

How sure are we about this? I got a lot less than 50% out for every single year yet HMRC hasn't dropped my case. How do i make them look again into my case?

Write to HMRC stating your case, and requesting that they close the years.
Give them a date by which to respond eg. 30 days (or how ever generous you're feeling).
Tell them if you haven't heard anything by said date, or they decline to close the years, you will be referring the matter to your MP.
Send the letter "signed for" and keep a copy to show your MP later.

MPs are very good at getting HMRC to do the right thing.

[jamesbrown]

If they win against you guys, you can bet your bottom dollar they'll try and find a way of making the judgment fit other accountancy arrangements. Just like they made the CBS win fit CK and Boox.

This. Long time frames and opportunity costs are BAU for HMRC. They seek to probe, clarify and extend the interpretation of the legislation in their favour, and this happens incrementally over time. The idea that they will stop at CK and Boox is for the birds when there are much bigger players out there with a similar business model and practices that are as bad or worse than CK and Boox. They have the time and money to see where these tribunals lead. In the mean time, it all serves as a deterrent to operating a contracting business, about which they will lose little sleep.