Posts by neil-t 18 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Aug 2015
Sounds like you company was dodging paying employers' national insurance and avoided having to worry about pesky costs like sick pay, holiday pay associated with employing staff. If your company wanted to put these two folks out on the street they could do it the same day. The contractors have no rights so no employment legislation would have covered them.
Your colleagues must have been earning squillions. In London contractors earn a decent living but so probably less than many similarly skilled professionals in the finance sector sector for example I personally don't know anyone driving expensive cars or owning a town house in Chelsea.
We are all earning enough to live in the capital and provide for families while taking care of our own pension arrangements, insurances, unpaid holidays and so forth.
The labour government could have closed down EBT schemes when they came to power but didn't. I don't see why taking advantage of overly complex, poorly drafted, ambiguous finance law is i
immoral or wrong.
Offshore / loans and other memes are just mechanisms for tax mitigation. Until the government in power close town tax loopholes and legislate appropriately they will be exploited. I don't this kind of exploitation as any different from implementing a clever engineering solution.
Plus the government will probably up dividend tax rates again in the next budget. In a few years' time I doubt there will be a much tax advantage in being a contractor with a Ltd Company.
Plus for those of you married, the spouse being able to draw dividends is a huge tax advantage that I hope will be closed.
You are simplifying complex tax planning to the level of a drunken pub dispute. That aside, the 2008 budget shut down this particular loophole. Why do you think there's a whole industry of tax accountants, lawyers, planners, advisor and so forth ? To exploit loopholes in poorly drafted, massively complex tax legislation. If the tax system was radically simplified as they've done in Estonia then wouldn't we just all pay what was due and have little wiggle room? Write to your MP or join a pressure group There's no point complaining on here about it.
You weren't tax dodging. You were tax mitigating. HMRC should have made it very clear to anyone using a DOTAS registered scheme that it would be challenged and the tax payer might end up owing tens of thousands. It's only with the Tory government's need to tackle the deficit aggressively that it's become less acceptable to engage in aggressive tax mitigation.
How many listed companies for example have NEVER used tax planning? It's been part of our corporate culture for many years. It's good that the government are making it clear that these tactics are not acceptable but at the time they were. So many large companies have avoided paying billions by clever tax planning and secret deals with HMRC. Private Eye has pages of journalism every fortnight on this topic.
The real point here is that the schemes were notified to HMRC in taxpayers' annual returns. HMRC has sat on this information for years, refused to negotiate with scheme providers to resolve open enquiries made on tax returns (a formal way for HMRC to be able to dispute the return in future).
HMRC has never sent out warning letters to scheme users saying they are liable to be pursued for income tax and NIC on the amounts disclosed (loans amounts from EBT schemes were disclosed annually in P11D forms).
IT's simple enough. However using a Ltd co. for his personal affairs cost Ken Livingston dear in the last mayoral election as the voting public were lead to believe it was avoidance. Nonsense of course. Who would pay more tax than they are assessed for? But it's an easy stick to bash independent professionals with.
It's up to the chancellor and the government to decide the tax rates for dividend income. They've whacked it up once this year and I guess it will rise until it reaches par with tax on earned income. That's probably fair. I'd prefer this than people bashing LTD company directors for tax 'avoidance'.
For those who are complaining about independent contractors using Ltd Companies, write to your MP. Simple.
Schemes used were disclosed under the DOTAS rules (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/12/part/7)
Why didn't you become a contractor? It's your choice whether or not to go down that route. I don't see why winging about people earning more than you helps when it's a free choice for anyone as to how they work and get paid for it.
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