Rogering the News

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The British Government sank to a new low with the 2008 finance act which included retrospective anti tax-avoidance legislation

Not anti tax evasion legislation, that would have proved too difficult to enforce, but anti tax avoidance. That thing whereby perfectly legitimate means exist to minimise tax liability.

It has resulted in some situations whereby anyone who had used existing legislation to avoid the punitive taxation imposed by HMG is now subject to a tax demand for taxes that were not due when the existing legislation. and prosecution if they didn’t cough up.

Even though they have paid all then taxes due under the law at the time and have done nothing illegal.

If that’s not theft by HMG then I’m a Dutchman.

In a recent test case a self-employed IT consultant (not me!) brought a test case against the retrospective application of the law claiming that it breached his human rights.

But the inglorious —- whatever —– Mr Justice Kenneth Parker, sitting in London, ruled the backdating of demands was ‘in the relevant circumstances proportionate’ and did not breach human rights.

So what ARE the relevant circumstances that allow theft to be undertaken by a Government? Desperation? Playing to an audience? Diverting attention? Window dressing?

Certainly the sum involved is so trivial in the overall scheme of things, and such draconian and morally WRONG measures as the use of a retrospective law are totally indefensible by any standards.

In the particular case where an appeal was being made by the victim the judge went on to say that the fact that the government had not carried out an assessment ‘of how individual taxpayers might be affected financially’ could not affect the proportionality of the retrospective legislation.

In this test case the at the time LEGAL and LEGITIMATE and moreover entirely MORALLY JUST tax avoidance arrangements had saved the guy who had challenged the ruling around £85 grand in income tax over seven years, a trivial one grand a month.

And why should he not have done so? The law was there to be used, he used it. Nothing more, he did nothing wrong, and yet now he and thousands of others will have their bank accounts burgled by the British government.

Retrospective legislation is a terribly dangerous weapon for a government to introduce. It should be used only in the most extreme cases and usually only where injury to a person has taken place.

It should NEVER be used in issues such as this.

This disgusting action by HMG will result in around 3,000 people being hammered, many will end up loosing their livelihoods, homes and probably families in spite of having done nothing wrong and paid all the taxes due.

And all for a total of around 200 million pounds in what can only be described as a thing beyond a stealth tax, this is a theft tax.

Some people wonder why entrepreneurs and the like have been leaving the UK in droves and are now doing at an ever increasing rate. Talk about killing the goose.

I’m hearing mutterings that even Unilever, one of the VERY few remaining Blue Chip British companies are seriously looking at if, how, and when to ‘up sticks’ and move out of the UK and they are one of many.

Now I see another story has hit the headlines. A man who meets the Treasury requirement about being absent from the UK for the requisite number of days per year is being lumbered with a huge tax bill —- because a court has found that he fails to meet the ‘spirit’ of not having the UK as his home. This in spite of having his home and principle abode in the Seychelles and having done so for decades.

So that’s it then. Play by the rules and still loose out. And people still wonder why in spite of being ‘illegal’ tax evasion is so preferable to tax avoidance.

At least in the case of the former you don’t get taxed for obeying the law.

My God, what has New Labour done?

Rog

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 10:02 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.