Confirmation of settlement

[Paralytic]

Or ten working months............

Which, for HRMC, is 20 calendar months.

[EBTContractor]

It's not an instant process.

I suggest you give them ten working days or so and check again.

Thanks mate will do..

[LoanChump]

Confirmation

Thanks mate will do..

FYI I paid on 24th August. After a week I called and said i wanted to check on progress. i was told that a letter confirming the matter sorted would be automatically generated on my 'due date'. Crazy as that was, I said 'ok'
My due date was '18th Sept' i have received nothing. I do usually get a letter from then about a week after they are dated. So I have waited. I have since decided that the likelihood was the person i spoke with actually meant 30th Sept...although I did get him to confirm 18th.
In the meantime, i have a stack of letters chasing, all dated a week apart that I have been posting each week since i paid.
Next week , allowing for their poor admin, i will start calling again.

[lowpaidworker]

Anyone else got their settlment letter and read in detail the statement you sign ?

What do people think of ....

"wholly or in part, because of my failure to meet all of my statutory obligations"

another bit about never reclaiming a refund and numerous other clauses. Must be the most one side agreement I have ever read.

Anyone else managed to get this reworded slightly ?

Its like something you expect from China / Iran / Russia when they extract confessions.

[webberg]

Anyone else got their settlment letter and read in detail the statement you sign ?

Its like something you expect from China / Iran / Russia when they extract confessions.

Nobody forces you to sign it.

The documents from the promoters and their supporters are equally scary although usually for the things they don't say.

For example, in almost all instances, once money went to the promoter/trust, they were NOT obliged to pay you a single penny.

If they had decided not to, you had no legal rights to sue them for "your" money, because you had signed all that away without legal recourse.

Again though, nobody forced you to sign.

[Superfly]

Nobody forces you to sign it.

The documents from the promoters and their supporters are equally scary although usually for the things they don't say.

For example, in almost all instances, once money went to the promoter/trust, they were NOT obliged to pay you a single penny.

If they had decided not to, you had no legal rights to sue them for "your" money, because you had signed all that away without legal recourse.

Again though, nobody forced you to sign.

With regards to the promoter, you paint one perspective. It does make you beg the question as to why anyone would sign such an agreement.

I will paint another one. What if the promoter at the time of signing told you that the loans will not be repayable? What if the promoter told you that the loans were purely to allow the tax-planning of the scheme to work? What if the promoter assured you that the sham 'loan' was all perfectly legal? What if the promoter told you that the scheme was approved by HMRC? What if the promoter told you that the scheme had the backing of QC opinion? What if the promoter told you that you had to apply for a 'loan' but it would never be refused as long as the amount did not exceed what you had paid in?

If you just look at the paperwork in isolation then you get the picture that you are painting, which raises the question as to why anybody would sign such an agreement. But you have to also consider the context around it as well as the (false) assurances provided by the scheme promoter. Then you can understand why people were willing to sign such a one-sided agreement.

Of course on hindsight you can see a generous sprinkling of red-flags. Just the word 'offshore' would make us run a mile. But at the time, for someone who was not tax and finance savvy and maybe a little naïve (remember it is difficult enough for a tax professional to understand and deal with all of this never mind the lay-person), you would take all this promoter spiel at face-value, and choose your umbrella like you would choose your car insurance, go for the cheapest (which are usually the 85 and 90%ers.

I am fortunate that I have emails from the promoter stating the loans would not be repayable as well as some other admissions which would have buttressed any arguments I would have put forward in court. This is all hypothetical now as my 'loans' have been 'written-off'. I will keep hold of the evidence though as it should prove useful for others in order to put some context around agreements that they may have signed.

[Paralytic]

I will paint another one. What if the promoter at the time of signing told you that the loans will not be repayable? What if the promoter told you that the loans were purely to allow the tax-planning of the scheme to work? What if the promoter assured you that the sham 'loan' was all perfectly legal? What if the promoter told you that the scheme was approved by HMRC? What if the promoter told you that the scheme had the backing of QC opinion? What if the promoter told you that you had to apply for a 'loan' but it would never be refused as long as the amount did not exceed what you had paid in?

What if a contact from the Nigerian consulate contacted you to say the Prince needed help in extracting $100,000 from the country and would pay you a commission for helping him?

There's no doubt some people were just financially unsophisticated and their greed made the fall for the patter, but I can't believe a significant number of people were not in the "I know this is too good to be true, but let's take the risk" bucket.

[lowpaidworker]

Leaving aside the scheme aside I am talking about the agreement to settle with HMRC

The agreement should just say I agree to pay the disputed tax for years x x or z. Why does the first statement say basically this is all my fault. Pretty sure HMRC came in for a lot of criticism in SAMs report.

Also in answer to WebberG if I dont sign it I am in more trouble as by law I should have then delclared these on my SATR. Makes sense now why HMRC left these settlemens so late in the day.

I was thinking of writing an agreement to just pay the tax disputed quoting the agreed figures without prejudice and not admit any liability.

[webberg]

.

I will paint another one.

I understand all of that and deal with it on a day to day basis. The point of my post was to compare what was being portrayed as an unreasonable HMRC contract with another contract that almost everybody on here also entered - voluntarily. You are absolutely correct that the difference is context.

Holding up the settlement contract as a stand alone document allows me to compare the document suite seen in loan schemes.

When you include the context of both situations, it all seems much more reasonable.

I'm not here to judge what you did and I don't do that in my day to day job. I do however think that if you see both "entry" and "exit" mechanisms in a valid comparison, it may help some people reconcile what HMRC wishes them to "admit".

[Simon100]

I am fortunate that I have emails from the promoter stating the loans would not be repayable as well as some other admissions which would have buttressed any arguments I would have put forward in court. This is all hypothetical now as my 'loans' have been 'written-off'. I will keep hold of the evidence though as it should prove useful for others in order to put some context around agreements that they may have signed.

Superfly, can I ask if your loans were through Sanzar? If so, can I ask how you got confirmation that your loans were written off?