The Loan Charge All-Party Parliamentary Group published its latest survey report November 5 in which more than 2,000 people believed to be facing the loan charge detailed how it, and HMRC's pursuit of its payment, had impacted their lives.
According to the survey, carried out between October 23 and October 28, one in six respondents are yet to receive settlement figures from HMRC detailing how much is owed, and a third have still not been formally notified of the charge by the taxman.
When approached by FTAdviser HMRC maintained more than 99 per cent of "customers" who had provided the relevant information by the April 2019 deadline had now received settlement calculations, as of August 31.
The MPs' report found more than 60 families were believed to have lost their homes as a result of the loan charge and two respondents reported they had been made homeless.
Further respondents said they had "seriously considered" suicide facing the charge and the parliamentary group also received reports of alleged miscarriages due to the stress of the situation.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group said much of the sentiment expressed in its most recent findings was similar to that published in its March survey - but where previous responses had focused on the legislation itself as the cause of distress, resentment was now growing towards HMRC's behaviour "wreaking havoc on taxpayers' lives".
The report said:
"In addition to HMRC’s inadequate ‘service’ towards taxpayers, participants have continued to emphasise that they are fearful, uncertain and this is now giving rise to a growing sense of anger at the perceived unjust manner in which HMRC is treating them.Outside of the specific questions included in the survey, respondents were invited to share details of their experiences of living with the loan charge.
The number of those participants who have claimed bankruptcy remains small. We can speculate that increased levels of bankruptcy are more likely to occur after taxpayers have signed settlement agreements.
Nevertheless, 94 per cent of participants remain in a perpetual state of limbo not knowing what the future holds."
These accounts included claims of abortions to "spare the unborn child from living with stress and threat of poverty".
Irrespective of the arguments about whether the loan charge is a retrospective tax or not, quite clearly a situation whereby people are committing suicide and having abortions because of a tax bill is wrong on every level.
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Full sympathy with all affected by the loan charge. HMRC have handled other so called "Discuised Renumeration Schemes" with the same diabolical attitude to their "customers". The sooner HMRC are held to account, the better, utter shambles and appear to make the rules up as they go along.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have ignored the fact that the users of these schemes were, in my opinion, dishonestly evading tax.
DeleteAbsolute B*ll*x
DeleteThey were using Tax Avoidance schemes which were legal at the time. You seem to be a government lackey as you cannot tell the difference between avoidance and evasion!
Not paying a penny in tax on their income might have been an indication that something wasn't right.
DeleteInteresting that the thread is titled 'wreaking havoc on taxpayers' lives'. Surely the point is that they weren't paying tax despite for the most part having very well remunerated jobs. That suggests that they are either very stupid or were on the fiddle.
ReplyDeletePeople who are claiming they had abortions because of a tax bill should be ashamed -presumably via an NHS they have avoided paying for ? These schemes were never "legal", loans which were never intended to be repaid were always intended to be income-repay the loan, no tax bill .What did I hear you say , you've spent all the money you should have paid in tax and its all someone elses fault as usual ? The majority were not as reported social workers, nurses and teachers they had high incomes to set up such schemes and blaming advisors is the usual cop out we have heard endlessly from celebs in film schemes, pure greed and an immoral attitude to the state ie everyone else can pay except me .If the readers on this site agree that tax is theft , move to Greece and see how that worked out , or perhaps Thailand where the state pension is £13 a month , people pay tax on a voluntary basis and work until they drop .
ReplyDeleteNailed it. Never having been rich I just don't get this 'the more I earn the less tax I should pay' idea. Why is that well-off people feel the need to cheat to have even more.
DeleteAs for using public services while fiddling your tax - as one of the regular contributors on here likes to say: "absolute scum".
Not one ounce of sympathy for these loan chargees...got caught red handed....dry your eyes and pay up.
ReplyDelete