This is a tough one AtW, for me it has much wider ramifications and much wider layers of unevenness in our political and taxation systems as I mentioned in the other other thread.
When the scheme users signed up to these schemes some may well have been aware that what they were doing was a bit dodgy but two things come into play as well - 1) The stupidity of the public at large, 2) The hard sales approach of the scheme operators.
When HRMC chose to introduce retrospective legislation to target the scheme users this crossed a line IMO, they went after the small man rather than those who got very rich from running these schemes.
HMRC could, and should, have acted quicker to close the schemes down and call on the Government to sort legislation so that these schemes could not continue to operate. They let them ride for years and years and many people were suckered in to using them.
The other massive disparity for me are the big businesses who continue to get away with paying jack tulip in relation to their turn over and profits by employing the same sort of tactics.
Yes, the HMRC tide is turning but my main point of upset here is that they should have acted sooner, they should have acted like honourable, responsible people, identified the problem and closed it off, not let the situation fester and let the stupid public get sucked into these schemes. They knew the problem was there and the responsible thing to do would have been to honour what was legal at the time, legislate to stop it happening again and move on.
When the scheme users signed up to these schemes some may well have been aware that what they were doing was a bit dodgy but two things come into play as well - 1) The stupidity of the public at large, 2) The hard sales approach of the scheme operators.
When HRMC chose to introduce retrospective legislation to target the scheme users this crossed a line IMO, they went after the small man rather than those who got very rich from running these schemes.
HMRC could, and should, have acted quicker to close the schemes down and call on the Government to sort legislation so that these schemes could not continue to operate. They let them ride for years and years and many people were suckered in to using them.
The other massive disparity for me are the big businesses who continue to get away with paying jack tulip in relation to their turn over and profits by employing the same sort of tactics.
Yes, the HMRC tide is turning but my main point of upset here is that they should have acted sooner, they should have acted like honourable, responsible people, identified the problem and closed it off, not let the situation fester and let the stupid public get sucked into these schemes. They knew the problem was there and the responsible thing to do would have been to honour what was legal at the time, legislate to stop it happening again and move on.
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