I have sympathy with the blogger's general point though
as tax avoidance costs us all ??, but it seems to me he's giving the likes of Melua and Barlow a bit of a free pass by saying they were conned by bad advice.
No, they were conned by their greed and willingness to take a risk. Any fule knows what the income tax rates are, and that not paying that rate amounts to tax evasion, and so that any scheme that suggests you can get away with paying a lower rate has to be very carefully scrutinised for lawfulness and level of risk.
I don't buy his argument that there is a rump of taxpayers who go into these Schemes blindly thinking that they are all perfectly lawful and above board just because their IFA tells them that they are - if they were so obviously lawful, then everybody would be doing it. This isn't a rump of innocent tax payers, it's a rump of gullible fools.
The whole point of these schemes is that they are exploiting possible loopholes in a very complicated tax system, but these loopholes only exist because the nuances of the English language allow for different people to interpret words in different ways, and no-one is able to draft a perfectly watertight tax code so mistakes and unintended consequences can creep in.
These Schemes very much rely on logic chains: "if X is correct, and Y doesn't happen, then we can use the Z loophole; Y shouldn't happen if A, B, and C are intepreted to mean D, E and F. " (And that's essentially what the QC's Opinion will be confirming) The taxpayer needs to be asking about the chances of the D, E and F interpretations being correct (which the QC's Opinion might cover, if the House asks), and making his own risk-based decision accordingly. If he doesn't ask, tough luck if it all goes pear-shaped.
If that sort of set up doesn't scream 'It might not work, think carefully before you sign up to it!', then I don't know what does.
A fool and his money are easily parted...
Posted By: CWC on August 8th 2014 at 11:14:08
Message Thread
- PM: Old Git, and other lawfaces. (General Chat) - Arizona Bay, Aug 8, 06:35:52
- Spot on I'm afraid, and remarkably brave to write (n/m) (General Chat) - Old Git, Aug 8, 16:10:00
- Difficult to say anything without seeing the underlying Opinion (General Chat) - CWC, Aug 8, 10:35:25
- I have sympathy with the blogger's general point though (General Chat) - CWC, Aug 8, 11:14:08
- Thanks for that, that's very interesting. (n/m) (General Chat) - Arizona Bay, Aug 8, 10:48:18
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