Ross Thomson
Main Page: Ross Thomson (Conservative - Aberdeen South)Department Debates - View all Ross Thomson's debates with the HM Treasury
(6 years ago)
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Ross Thomson (Aberdeen South) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) on introducing the debate and being such a champion on this issue. My inbox and my surgeries have been inundated.
I represent Aberdeen South, which is the energy capital of Europe and the hub of our oil and gas industry. Many who worked in oil and gas were actively encouraged by their companies to get involved with such schemes, to set up a personal limited company and to get off the company books. Many did so for many years. Many felt assured that they were being advised by chartered accountants and tax advisers. Everything was above board. It was their belief that their professional accountant could not advise anything illegal; otherwise, their chartered status would be revoked.
Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)
Of course it is a failure of successive Governments, but in 2011 the Government actually looked at this. They did not come up with a definitive answer and as a result these schemes proliferated.
Ross Thomson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I could not agree with him more. For many, this option seemed to be the obvious choice. The retrospective nature of this decision is causing great distress. As has been said, there is a huge human cost. I want to take this opportunity to share with the Minister and hon. Members the stories of my constituents.
One constituent wrote to me and said:
“It’s been going on for a few years now and taking its toll on my family. As we are unsure where we’ll get the money to pay any outstanding tax, their bullying tactics in getting you to sign up to pay and the fact they demand you to reach a settlement with them, even though when we have done everything they ask, they have still not come back with any settlement figures.
Not only that, they are saying even if you settle or pay back the loans, there’s a strong possibility it won’t end there, so we go back to their scaremongering tactics they’ve deployed for you to pay up front and ask questions later, it’s totally unjust for our future as being a democratic society”.
Another constituent said:
“I like to think I understood the risk I was taking and had every confidence in the scheme I was using, I did not entertain the prospect that the Government would be prepared to violate the core principle of the rule of ‘legal certainty’ by introducing retrospective legislation going back 20 years…This weekend I have received my settlement ‘offer’ under HMRC’s settlement offer and am currently in the process of deciding whether or not to accept their terms. Whilst I sincerely would like to settle and move on, I am deeply concerned that their CLSO2 is extremely unfair and punitive.”
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Does he agree that the fundamental unfairness is that HMRC is going after the easiest of targets, namely the individuals, rather than those who may be the most culpable?
Ross Thomson
I could not agree more. It seems to be easy pickings for HMRC. It is not going after those who are truly culpable. That is why such great distress is being expressed in our surgeries.
My constituent continued:
“This whole sorry affair has imposed life changing levels of stress on both me and my family, especially with the backdrop of the recent downturn in the oil and gas industry where I have been out of work for about 50% of the past two years.”
Another constituent wrote:
“This is a complicated situation, however fundamentally, HMRC have closed down the opportunity to use these ‘loan’ schemes.”
My constituent accepts that it is a positive move to end ambiguity.
“The retrospective nature of this legislation is going to place a large number of contractors under extreme financial duress. Bearing in mind HMRC’s failure to sort this situation out sooner”.
Another constituent—this is the last example I will give—emailed me to say that he was emailed by a company stating that he could retain 78% to 80% of his salary legally. He wrote:
“The scheme was QC approved and top tax counsel advised it was sound… I learnt during the latter part of last week that my retrospective tax charge is very likely to exceed £230,000. As for HMRC’s so-called ‘Impact Assessment’ apparently finding that such sums would lead to few, if any issues for those being expected to pay such, I can only comment that they must assume that we are all multi-millionaires. Of course, they know full well that we aren’t.
It’s very daunting when the full weight of government makes demands with threats of the law being brought to bear when, according to the law, no law has been broken. I doubt very much that I can simply ignore threats, be taken to court and stand there and say such. Thus individuals are placed in the position of hiring lawyers with costs running into six-figures and this will be beyond the means of most, if not all of us.”
This particular constituent says that he is single and has
“never had a second income from a partner to assist with cost of living”.
He is facing serious financial distress.
It is right that we condemn those who sold on and encouraged such schemes. It is deeply unfair that we seek to do this retrospectively. It absolutely violates the core principles of the rule of law. I could not agree more with colleagues who have already expressed that frustration. I think that this particular measure is disgraceful. I will go further-I think it is dishonourable and should be stopped.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
If colleagues could keep to five minutes, we might get everybody in.