Hi. I have been advised that my contracts since the inception of IR35 may in fact put me within IR35. I may therefore have been "avoiding tax" even though I see myself as a law abiding citizen. I am horrified that the men in black may soon be arriving at my door. I don't want to go into details of why I am only discovering this now. Needless to say, some earlier advice I received has been rubbished.
Two options have been suggested:
1. Close down my company immediately. The IR are unlikely to seek retrospective compliance to IR35 for companies that no longer exist. This sounds like a load of tosh to me and carries a huge risk.
2. Seek to comply with IR35 retrospectively by appointing a lawyer to represent me. However, although I see this as approaching the IR with hand-on-heart, they may decide that I was avoiding tax and throw the book at me. I have been paying Corporation Tax, a nominal salary and dividends as we all did pre-IR35 and they may not recalculate what I should have paid fairly.
Any thoughts on how to approach this? My increased tax liability as a result of IR35 is probably massive (crippling in fact) but I do not want this haunting me for ever more.
Thanks
AD
Two options have been suggested:
1. Close down my company immediately. The IR are unlikely to seek retrospective compliance to IR35 for companies that no longer exist. This sounds like a load of tosh to me and carries a huge risk.
2. Seek to comply with IR35 retrospectively by appointing a lawyer to represent me. However, although I see this as approaching the IR with hand-on-heart, they may decide that I was avoiding tax and throw the book at me. I have been paying Corporation Tax, a nominal salary and dividends as we all did pre-IR35 and they may not recalculate what I should have paid fairly.
Any thoughts on how to approach this? My increased tax liability as a result of IR35 is probably massive (crippling in fact) but I do not want this haunting me for ever more.
Thanks
AD
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