General Election 2019 - AND IT’S LIVE!

[Granny Danger]

4 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

In all your many years of life, has it not sunk into your tiny brain that when you post stuff like that you are advertising that you have lost the argument?

How does a person get to your age and not learn this basic lesson?

What argument?

[gmca]

With a heavy heart I think oaksoft is more accurate on this.

Evasion, we know, is the deliberate act of not paying tax that's legally due, usually by hiding income or profits.

Avoidance schemes are set up to try and reduce the amount of tax payable using methods that are supposedly strictly within the law. The Halifax case and later cases set guidelines on when avoidance schemes "work". If they don't, the perpetrator will likely have underpaid tax and be due to repay what has been underpaid. That doesn't make the schemes evasion though because they haven't hidden income or profits.

The Rangers case with EBT is a reasonable example I think. The income wasn't hidden, it was described as loans.

[Baxter Parp]

2 hours ago, gmca said:

With a heavy heart I think oaksoft is more accurate on this.

Evasion, we know, is the deliberate act of not paying tax that's legally due, usually by hiding income or profits.

Avoidance schemes are set up to try and reduce the amount of tax payable using methods that are supposedly strictly within the law. The Halifax case and later cases set guidelines on when avoidance schemes "work". If they don't, the perpetrator will likely have underpaid tax and be due to repay what has been underpaid. That doesn't make the schemes evasion though because they haven't hidden income or profits.

The Rangers case with EBT is a reasonable example I think. The income wasn't hidden, it was described as loans.

Jesus H. Christ.

https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/opinion/legal-tax-avoidance/

In the Rangers case the funds were described as loans so it wasn't considered income but it was.  See how it works? You don't have to hide income to evade taxes, just pretend it's something else. 

[gmca]

6 hours ago, Baxter Parp said:

Jesus H. Christ.

https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/opinion/legal-tax-avoidance/

In the Rangers case the funds were described as loans so it wasn't considered income but it was.  See how it works? You don't have to hide income to evade taxes, just pretend it's something else. 

Which is exactly what I said.

Paul Lewis uses the word evoid, not evade, when a scheme is set up to pay less tax than the law intended. Perhaps he's also mooting the point that what is/was considered avoidance is in some cases somewhere between avoidance and evasion. Pure semantics of course.

[Baxter Parp]

12 hours ago, Baxter Parp said:

That doesn't make the schemes evasion though because they haven't hidden income or profits.

The Rangers case with EBT is a reasonable example I think. The income wasn't hidden

You seem to be saying the Rangers case wasn't evasion.

[gmca]

1 hour ago, Baxter Parp said:

You seem to be saying the Rangers case wasn't evasion.

It wasn't evasion, it was a well known avoidance scheme which I understand Rangers set up quite badly, so HMRC attacked it through the courts.

The income (and you're right it was income) was partly declared as loans in order to reduce the tax burden.

[Granny Danger]

My understanding of the Rangers wheeze was that they gave ‘loans’ (which incurred no taxes) instead of paying wages (which would incur taxes) but the “loans” would not need to be repaid.

Regardless of what the “experts” think that is evasion not avoidance.

[Stellaboz]

It wasn't evasion, it was a well known avoidance scheme which I understand Rangers set up quite badly, so HMRC attacked it through the courts.
The income (and you're right it was income) was partly declared as loans in order to reduce the tax burden.

Clearly they thought of it as evasion if they went after them.

[Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo]

Edited January 21, 2020 by Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo

[welshbairn]

11 minutes ago, Stellaboz said:

2 hours ago, gmca said:

It wasn't evasion, it was a well known avoidance scheme which I understand Rangers set up quite badly, so HMRC attacked it through the courts.
The income (and you're right it was income) was partly declared as loans in order to reduce the tax burden.

Clearly they thought of it as evasion if they went after them.

I thought it was still going through the courts.

[Dons_1988]

The ‘grey area’ is when tax accountants interpret laws that have never been tested in the courts.

As soon as a precedent is set in a court of law then it becomes unequivocally evasion. Anything that hasn’t then HMRC will challenge it in the courts so companies are taking that risk. They will say it’s avoidance due to their interpretation of the law.

[Baxter Parp]

5 hours ago, gmca said:

It wasn't evasion, it was a well known avoidance scheme which I understand Rangers set up quite badly, so HMRC attacked it through the courts.

The income (and you're right it was income) was partly declared as loans in order to reduce the tax burden.

It was a tax avoidance scheme that turned out to be a tax evasion scheme because it was ruled to be illegal by the Supreme Court.  Tax avoidance is legal, what they were doing was illegal. That's your blurred line, right there.

Edited January 21, 2020 by Baxter Parp

[Baxter Parp]

2 hours ago, welshbairn said:

I thought it was still going through the courts.

The Supreme Court ruled on it in 2017.

[welshbairn]

Boo.

[BFTD]

So did the old club die, then, or what? I've never been clear on that point.

Spoiler

Bad Dave. Obviously it did.

 

[gmca]

3 hours ago, Stellaboz said:

6 hours ago, gmca said:

It wasn't evasion, it was a well known avoidance scheme which I understand Rangers set up quite badly, so HMRC attacked it through the courts.
The income (and you're right it was income) was partly declared as loans in order to reduce the tax burden.

Clearly they thought of it as evasion if they went after them.

No, they originally thought of it as avoidance and pursued them through the civil courts I believe. Would have taken out a criminal case at the start if they thought it was evasion.

Edited January 21, 2020 by gmca

[Baxter Parp]

No, they originally thought of it as avoidance and pursued them through the civil courts I believe. Would have taken out a criminal case at the start if they thought it was evasion.

HMRC haven't taken anyone to criminal court for years, they got rid of most of their solicitors ages ago. The case went through the usual route of assessment, appeal, then another appeal then went to the courts for judicial review and finally ended up in the Supreme Court. If HMRC originally thought it was a legitimate tax avoidance vehicle, Rangers would have been fine. The fact is that it was assessed to be illegitimate so Rangers and the players were billed for tax they'd failed to pay and charged a penalty on top.

 

[Father Ted]

The example of Lewis Hamilton's helicopter.

Whereby, Lewis Hamilton(Barbados) Ltd, purchases the helicopter, and then rents it to Lewis Hamilton(Isle of Man) Ltd. Mr Hamilton gains £0.5million savings in tax.

This is avoidance, not evasion. It clearly is ripping the erse out of it and insult to the GB public.

As has been said before, there's a lot of people making a lot of money from the grey areas and stretching avoidance to the limit.

The laws regarding avoidance should be tightened alot and no grey areas, but this is a pipe dream.

Morally its repugnant, but these areas that profit from this practice, dont have morals.

[Baxter Parp]

The example of Lewis Hamilton's helicopter.

Whereby, Lewis Hamilton(Barbados) Ltd, purchases the helicopter, and then rents it to Lewis Hamilton(Isle of Man) Ltd. Mr Hamilton gains £0.5million savings in tax.

This is avoidance, not evasion. It clearly is ripping the erse out of it and insult to the GB public.

As has been said before, there's a lot of people making a lot of money from the grey areas and stretching avoidance to the limit.

The laws regarding avoidance should be tightened alot and no grey areas, but this is a pipe dream.

Morally its repugnant, but these areas that profit from this practice, dont have morals.

It's a pipe dream because HMRC relies on the big accounting firms (KPMG, et al) to "advise" them on amending/improving the regulations. In reality they are busy thinking up wheezes to circumvent the regulations all the while they are "helping" HMRC with their expertise and know-how.

As I recall it's private jets that the Isle of Man is so helpful with. The EU were looking into it but all that is academic now.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/isle-of-man-s-tax-loophole-on-private-jets-under-scrutiny-1.3695562

[Father Ted]

I think this is the root of the problem for people.
Paying tax is not a moral issue. It's a legal one.

It's not a moral issue, I agree.

If there were more morals and less greed, the state of public services wouldn't be so bad.

As it always is, human beings are the problem, a constant source of disappointment.