Justine Greening
Main Page: Justine Greening (Independent - Putney)
Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)
Like many other Members, I have a number of affected constituents. When one of them first came to see me in my surgery, I listened. It was a complex tax case and it soon became clear that the way in which it was being handled was genuinely not how I had been used to seeing things dealt with during my time as a Treasury Minister. I and many of my colleagues, including my next-door neighbour, the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), are right to raise our concerns, not least because of the very personal impact the issue is having on thousands of people around the country who have this hanging over them without anything being done to resolve the situation, other than those who represent them setting out how much of an impact it is having on their lives.
I have young constituents who are contractors and have been unwittingly caught up in this. They did all the right things, including asking their accountant and checking whether a QC had approved a scheme. An older gentleman who is caught up in it is looking at having to sell his home. He is in his 70s and clearly has no ability to go back into the workplace to even begin to recoup some of the money that HMRC is now claiming he should pay.
There are a number of issues, but in the end it comes down to how we in this House, and HMRC, look at the concept of fairness in taxation. I think that HMRC has simply got it wrong and is striking the wrong balance. I agree that the Financial Secretary is a talented Minister, but in the end it is these more challenging areas of policy that make or break a reputation, rather than the ability to do a brilliant job from day to day on turning around constituency casework where, as others have said, he is almost unparalleled in his assiduousness. I hope that he will use his talent to find a way through and to come up with a compromise to achieve a quick resolution.
The approach being taken circumvents taxpayer protections on time limits on HMRC inquiries, as many have said. The bottom line is that, overwhelmingly, people declared these arrangements transparently. They sent in their tax returns and, as has been said, some were given tax rebates. They were given no indication that HMRC was ever going to come back to those years.
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)
I am also an ex-Treasury Minister and my right hon. Friend’s neighbour. Could she comment on the unusual nature of the situation? One of my constituents has had £300,000 assessed, so the average of £13,000 can mask some of the very large numbers involved.
Justine Greening
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of my constituents has done their own estimate and they believe that this could cost them £230,000. They say:
“I was first contacted by HMRC in 2013/14 about income from just the 2008-2010 tax years and having accepted my appeal letter to their enquiries I haven’t heard anything from them since. So 5 years on, I still have no clear idea what HMRC believes I owe them and the real justification for it.”
As they say:
“Communication from HMRC has been inconsistent and sporadic at best. In addition”—
I will come on to this issue—
“HMRC does not appear to be targeting the companies who were (and in some cases still are) providing these tax planning schemes, but rather the individuals who used them. Sadly, there are still people joining these schemes today, unware of the impact it is likely to have on them.”
HMRC’s approach to the loan charge has been punitive rather than proportionate. For some constituents it has essentially grouped up to 20 years of charges and lumped them into one big sum that they are now being asked to pay. [Interruption.]
With the sound of a leaky roof in the background—this has been an interesting week for other events happening while Members have been giving speeches—I will conclude by asking a really important question. What on earth is being done to tackle those promoting the schemes? They are the people who have, effectively—and, I believe, knowingly in many cases—mis-sold schemes, got rich off the back of them and left the people who took part in them to pick up the pieces.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
Over 10 years ago, Roy Faichney and David Perrin—non-accountants in an accountants tax firm—were arrested and later convicted, but their clients were not told that HMRC might come after them 10 years later. That strikes me as grossly unfair and out of time.
Justine Greening
I think that is right, and it would be good if the Minister was clearer about how many schemes HMRC is aware of, how many are currently being tackled by HMRC, how many remain unaddressed, what penalties have been issued in relation to closing down such schemes, how much that has totted up to, and what action has been taken against the directors who pursued and promoted those schemes, often in the knowledge that they were not compliant with HMRC. Will they ever be barred from being directors in future? They are clearly reckless and, I think, not fit to be company directors. We need to send out a message across the industry that such behaviour is not acceptable, that lost revenue will be sought to be recouped from the businesses and companies promoting the schemes first—that they are the ones at risk—and that then, perhaps secondly, there will be more clear-cut rules for people to understand when they are putting themselves and their assets at risk by participating in such schemes.
It really is time that HMRC did all the people caught up unwittingly in this loan charge issue a favour, set out a sensible compromise that draws a line in the sand and does not go back so far, treated them with dignity and enabled them either, where they still owe money, to settle or, where not, to move on with their lives and get clarity as soon as possible.