Eleven million tax avoiding documents..

[I1L2T3]

Yep, you are correct. The HMRC can refer a person or scheme to the Tribunal and its up to a Judge to deem whether or not a scheme is aggressive and a recoupment sought. I have no problem with that.

 

What I do have a problem with though is these so called do gooders leaking and whistleblowing to the press about perfectly legal activities, damaging people's reputations in the process. If they have suspicions then they should be reported through the proper channels.

 

As far as I'm concerned, until a Judge has deemed such activity is illegal its none of our business. It is totally unacceptable for people to put to trial by media.

 

Innocent until PROVEN guilty. Its not up to the Guardian to decide.

 

---------- Post added 04-04-2016 at 00:11 ----------

 

 

See above. Until the relevant authorities decide that an activity is "aggressive avoidance" its none of our business.

 

If it's none of our business and that is your opinion then walk away from this thread

 

IMO we have a right to know what has been going on, especially so if it impacts the appetite of our government to introduce reform.

[RonJeremy]

Indeed, for aggressive avoidance absolutely yes we should punish people.

 

Sometimes the law is wrong and needs to be changed. Would you disagree with that? Certainly the HMRC has powers to pursue aggressive avoidance and can retrospectively declare avoidance schemes illegal recovering large sums in the process.

 

It seems that more concerted international action is needed though.

 

If it's within the law we should of course not punish people.

The revenue punishes and bullies people into paying tax that isn't due under the rules.

They do the equivalent of changing the the speed limit on a road from 60 to 30 then retrospectively fining people for doing 55 because they now think it is dangerous.

 

Obviously I'm happy, like you, for others to pay much more tax than me. Green eyed etc.

[ECCOnoob]

Oh come on, you missed the big bit.

 

ELEVEN MILLION documents.

 

Not just sheets of paper but 11,000,000 documents. It's mindbogglingly insane. Someones going to be running hard from some hard pipe hitting ****** who are going to go medieval on their **** when they catch them...

 

(with apologies to Pulp Fiction...)

 

What about it? What's the number of documents prove.

 

The law firm involved is a large commercial firm with 40 offices around the globe. It has a huge sector with lawyers specialising with trusts and tax. It could have hundreds of thousands of client's whom it represents for such affairs. Just because the newspaper has headlined the key names does not mean that there aren't others.

 

Have you any idea how many "documents" your average corporate law firm holds on its systems.

 

11 million doesn't shock me.

 

---------- Post added 04-04-2016 at 00:20 ----------

 

IMO we have a right to know what has been going on, especially so if it impacts the appetite of our government to introduce reform.

 

You do. WHEN it has been formally confirmed that illegal activity has taken place.

 

Until such time as that happens why should ANY of these people, no matter high profile they are, be smeared across the newspapers and having their confidential data spread around for activity which they are perfectly entitled to do and is perfectly legal.

 

Do I have a right to get your bank statement and spread it across the papers and internet because I SUSPECT you are engaging in undeclared work???

Edited April 3, 2016 by ECCOnoob

[I1L2T3]

If it's within the law we should of course not punish people.

The revenue punishes and bullies people into paying tax that isn't due under the rules.

They do the equivalent of changing the the speed limit on a road from 60 to 30 then retrospectively fining people for doing 55 because they now think it is dangerous.

Obviously I'm happy, like you, for others to pay much more tax than me. Green eyed etc.

 

No they don't. You're talking nonsense. What HMRC do is follow a process to assess a registered avoidance scheme. If that avoidance scheme is found to be not within the spirit of the law (and there is a significant amount of latitude in making that decision) or indeed to have been illegal to begin with then HMRC can make steps to recover unpaid tax and they can retrospectively change the law to make a scheme illegal.

 

Note that this often happens retrospectively because the number of schemes being registered means that HMRC don't always have the resources to fully assess a scheme at the point it is registered.

 

---------- Post added 04-04-2016 at 00:32 ----------

 

You do. WHEN it has been formally confirmed that illegal activity has taken place.

 

Until such time as that happens why should ANY of these people, no matter high profile they are, be smeared across the newspapers and having their confidential data spread around for activity which they are perfectly entitled to do and is perfectly legal.

 

Do I have a right to get your bank statement and spread it across the papers and internet because I SUSPECT you are engaging in undeclared work???

 

If nothing illegal has happened then there is nothing to hide.

[Quik]

If it's within the law we should of course not punish people.

The revenue punishes and bullies people into paying tax that isn't due under the rules.

They do the equivalent of changing the the speed limit on a road from 60 to 30 then retrospectively fining people for doing 55 because they now think it is dangerous.

 

Obviously I'm happy, like you, for others to pay much more tax than me. Green eyed etc.

 

I think to be fair HMRC's powers in this regard are more like them being able to do people flying along at 90 in a 60 zone who had used a fake plate to avoid being caught.

[ECCOnoob]

If nothing illegal has happened then there is nothing to hide.

 

Fair enough. Cant argue with that.

 

When will you be publishing details for your income, expenditure, all your passwords, all your bank account details, your statements, copy wage slips and your receipts for the past 6 months please.

 

I mean, you got nothing to hide so what's the problem.

[I1L2T3]

I think to be fair HMRC's powers in this regard are more like them being able to do people flying along at 90 in a 60 zone who had used a fake plate to avoid being caught.

 

Indeed. Odd as it may seem the process is partly designed to protect high earners from dodgy tax accountants and lawyers. Plenty of perfectly decent people (footballers, entertainers etc...) have been caught up in dodgy avoidance schemes in good faith, and have ended up having to repay a lot of money.

[the_bloke]

No they don't. You're talking nonsense. What HMRC do is follow a process to assess a registered avoidance scheme. If that avoidance scheme is found to be not within the spirit of the law (and there is a significant amount of latitude in making that decision) or indeed to have been illegal to begin with then HMRC can make steps to recover unpaid tax and they can retrospectively change the law to make a scheme illegal.

 

Not sure where you are getting your information from. The concept of 'the spirit of the law' is basically the law saying 'do A and the end result is B' when in reality someone is 'doing A, via C and the end result is B'. The law doesn't explicitly state you can't do C, so it's not illegal to do so. The idea of C wasn't even thought of when the law was made. In HMRC's case, they can investigate the person doing C all they want but they have to go to court and fight their case if they think doing C is wrong even though it's not written in law. They can lose too.

 

http://www.taxadvisermagazine.com/article/spirit-law

[I1L2T3]

Fair enough. Cant argue with that.

 

When will you be publishing details for your income, expenditure, all your passwords, all your bank account details, your statements, copy wage slips and your receipts for the past 6 months please.

 

I mean, you got nothing to hide [/b]

 

You know it doesn't work like that

 

But, you show me yours and I'll show you mine.

 

---------- Post added 04-04-2016 at 00:44 ----------

 

Not sure where you are getting your information from. The concept of 'the spirit of the law' is basically the law saying 'do A and the end result is B' when in reality someone is 'doing A, via C and the end result is B'. The law doesn't explicitly state you can't do C, so it's not illegal to do so. The idea of C wasn't even thought of when the law was made. In HMRC's case, they can investigate the person doing C all they want but they have to go to court and fight their case if they think doing C is wrong even though it's not written in law. They can lose too.

 

http://www.taxadvisermagazine.com/article/spirit-law

 

From here: https://www.gov.uk/topic/dealing-with-hmrc/tax-avoidance

[Obelix]

What about it? What's the number of documents prove.

 

 

I suspect that it's not just from one persons accounts though - this is someone wanting to make a point - and a lot of enemies very quickly. 11 million documents is a fair chunk of storage - this was something planned for a while I would expect.