Employment Benefit Trusts - HMRC invite you to settle
matters...
HMRC, as we know are cracking down heavily on Employee Benefit
Trusts and users of them due to the way in which such trusts have
been administered i.e. as a way to purely avoid paying tax!
It was only going to be a matter of time before HRMC got wise and
put a stop to it and March's 2011 Finance Bill took care of that,
however it seems that HMRC are now offering a new settlement
opportunity to all those people involved in EBT's asking them to
contact HMRC and basically reveal all about it. This will
give them the benefit of agreeing a settlement figure rather than
having what could potentially be a long drawn out and expensive
court case which, let's face it, is only going to end in HMRC's
favour.
HMRC said: "The Finance (No. 3) Bill 2011 published on 31 March
2011 introduced new legislation to put beyond doubt that such
arrangements or schemes do not work."
Dave Hartnett, Permanent Secretary for Tax at HMRC, said "This
initiative reflects HMRC's determination to seek to resolve
disputes without going to litigation where that can be done without
detriment to the Exchequer and within the clear boundaries of the
law. HMRC's pro-active approach to customers gives them the
opportunity to discuss their cases with us and work in partnership
to establish how the facts of their case fit within the proposals.
For this reason I would encourage customers to come and talk to
us."
According to HMRC, you have until the 31st December
2011 to contact them after which point they will assume you are not
interested in "engaging with them and will look to progress
enquiries formally."
The Terms on which HMRC are prepared to settle can be found on
their website
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/employers/employee-benefit-trusts.htm
along with full details.
If HMRC are as serious about EBT's as they say they are, doing
nothing could be a big mistake. It will be interesting to see
how effective this settlement opportunity is and for those that
don't choose to come clean, how much worse off they will be.