18 months ago Brookson commented on the Treasury’s plans for a new clampdown on tax avoidance and a number of changes to legislation that were announced by the exchequer secretary to the Treasury David Gauke.
Legislation has subsequently been published by the Treasury designed to tackle disguised remuneration and the recent Jimmy Carr case is one high profile example of someone using an Employee Benefit Trust which these rules are designed to target. HM Revenue & Customs has confirmed that it is already investigating the scheme which Jimmy Carr is using and other similar schemes.
According to the coalition, the clampdown on tax avoidance will help raise an additional £2 billion in tax revenue during the course of this parliament and this is evidence of HMRC now carrying out this enforcement.
Martin Hesketh, Managing Director at Brookson comments: 'This enforcement activity should only be of concern to contractors working through EBT schemes, which typically involve the payment of “loans” from offshore trusts, and not to contractors working through legitimate umbrella companies, trading through their own limited company or operating as a sole trader and therefore will not impact Brookson customers.'
