* You are viewing the archive for September, 2009

Unfair and unreasonable!

With effect from April 2010 HM Revenue & Customs are taking away a long established concession or non-statutory arrangement known as “Equitable Liability”. Not a lot of people know about its existence, even professional advisers, perhaps because it does not come up too often.What is Equitable Liability? Well, it is a practice which helped out a group of people you may not feel too sorry for; those who did not submit their Tax Returns for quite a number of years. When Tax Returns have not been submitted, HMRC is entitled under statute to estimate the tax which might … Continue Reading

Amateur tax avoidance

I am not sure how people dream up ideas as to how they can avoid tax and then just do what they think is necessary without talking to a professional adviser. Very often their “cunning plans” can be very costly indeed.I have dealt with a client who arranged for his father to give away his parents’ house to him to avoid inheritance tax. Firstly, it did not work from the IHT point of view because his parents and then his mother after his father’s death continued to live in the property. After his mother died he sold the … Continue Reading