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Keith M Gordon Profile picture
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3 Nov, 5 tweets, 4 min read
Some interesting lines from the Government and its supporters today.
My question is whether they will apply these same standards to taxpayers who were duped into joining loan schemes and have been punished with the loan charge.
1/6
From Jacob Rees-Mogg @Jacob_Rees_Mogg :
Justice must be done … there must be an appeals process
2/6
The presence of an appeals system is important per JRM.
He emphasises the importance of fairness and states how MPs “must act” whenever they see something incompatible with natural justice.
3/5
@andrealeadsom Andrea Leadsom is also extolling the virtues of natural justice.
4/5
Even the Speaker (the model of impartiality), or perhaps the Hansard reporter, seemed to think that there was something fishy going on:
5/5

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More from @keithmgordon

Keith M Gordon Profile picture
30 Sep
The latest disclosures relate to a request for meta-data. This is information that relates to the handling of an FOIA request, and not merely the original underlying information.
This final set of tweets shows a memo prepared in response to a request.
1/15
Senior officials had hoped to and continued to withhold data.

2/15
As can be seen, it was not just senior civil servants but the FST himself has had to consider questions of disclosure.
3/15
Read 15 tweets
Keith M Gordon Profile picture
30 Sep
This is a draft memo to the FST (by then Jesse N).
Interesting that the “retrospection” challenge was reworded.
1/11
Again, this is one of the causes of dissonance.
HMRC’s “belief” is based on experience of dealing with the wealthy tax avoiders and presumably very little action taken in relation to contractors for so many years.
2/11
A very sad by-product of Brexit. Had the 2019 election not taken place, the retrospective nature of the loan charge might have been removed.
3/11
Read 11 tweets
Keith M Gordon Profile picture
30 Sep
Comment HJ1 is very revealing and probably lies at the heart of the disonance in this debate. Tax pros usually consider Net pay to be TAXABLE SALARY - TAX - NI (i.e. fees disregarded).
Normal people consider NET pay to be what ends up in the pocket (i.e. fees taken into account).
Ditto re HJ3. The original wording was full of jargon that many in the tax world just do not realise is meaningless to normal people.
At least, on this occasion, HJ recognised the position from the perspective of the tax-muggle.
The final paragraph is typical of an approach that's evolved over the past 20 years. Previously, common sense arrangements could be made locally. Now HMRC require an enforceable debt to be crystallised BEFORE negotiating payment terms. The balance of power is tilted towards HMRC.
Read 5 tweets
Keith M Gordon Profile picture
30 Sep
I have just read what HMRC told MPs about the loan charge in their monthly digest in January 2019. It is plain wrong.
1/5
If X owes Y some money, Y has the right to go to Court to enforce the debt against X.
No new legislation is needed to enable Y to do this.

2/5
HMRC, however, assert that the loan charge was introduced to ensure that contractors “pay what they owe”. No it was not. It was introduced to ensure that contractors are forced to pay what someone else owed.
3/5
Read 5 tweets
Keith M Gordon Profile picture
29 Sep
I have just seen a response to a recent FOIA request I made to FOIA. It covers four areas which I shall address separately:
1/4
1.Interestingly, it asserts in the context of the use of non governmental lines of electronic communication "is not permitted when conducting government business. Further, the use of non-government email accounts to discuss government business is not allowed".
NB @gem_abbott
2/4
2&3. I have forwarded copies of the digests received to @loanchargeAPPG and perhaps they will be able to post a link for anyone interested.

3/4
Read 4 tweets
Keith M Gordon Profile picture
18 Aug
Annex A provides an interesting summary of the history of these schemes, emphasising the expansion to contractor loans in about 2004 (previously said to be 2005/06).
25/33
More acknowledgement of HMRC’s delays (particularly pre-2009)

26/33
And here we see why the position WAS NOT CLEAR after the 2011 changes.
27/33
Read 9 tweets

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