New proposals to clamp down on the promoters of tax avoidance – Draft legislation
LITRG fully supports HMRC’s efforts to take strong action against the promoters of tax avoidance schemes. From a tax perspective, none of the proposed measures seem particularly controversial to us and we have no further comments to make on the draft legislation, in terms of what is there.
However, we do not believe that the government response to the consultation or this draft legislation addresses the more general concerns we have raised as to HMRC’s strategy to tackle Disguised Remuneration (DR).
As set out in our original response to the consultation, and as we reiterate here – LITRG think there is a now a very strong case for decoupling the DR schemes from HMRC’s other efforts and presumptions in tackling tax avoidance, and for HMRC to explore alternative strategies.
The draft legislation and summary of responses can be found on GOV.UK.
Our submission can be found here.