Tax avoidance is a commonly misunderstood term. Our brilliant team can explain exactly what it means and how it differs to tax evasion.
Tax Avoidance is the operation of a policy, scheme or arrangement which seeks, directly or indirectly, to avoid the payment of tax by re-describing income or earnings as something that would not ordinarily be chargeable to tax (for example a loan or gift) which in turn will eliminate or reduce the sum chargeable to tax.
Tax avoidance is illegal within the UK under various overlapping pieces of tax legislation which can potentially leave the taxpayer with more than one tax obligation. Please see our website here which describes the difference between Tax Planning and Tax Avoidance.
- In more recent years tax avoidance has become more complex to tackle as HMRC have sought to clamp down on such activities as part of its anti-avoidance strategy.
- As a result, tax avoidance schemes have arisen to enable loans (which would not ordinarily be taxable) to be made via contractor loan schemes or to Employee Benefit Trusts which lend it on to the individual (avoiding the requirement to pay income tax).
These tax avoidance schemes are now largely illegal and from 5 April 2019 the employee may be at risk of a far more severe penalty in the even such loans remain outstanding, potentially going back up to 20 years – read more about these loan charges.
At Francis Wilks & Jones we have considerable experience of
- tax disputes;
- defending claims by HMRC
- defending claims by liquidators
- negotiations with HMRC,
- accelerated payment notices, any disguised remuneration scheme
- personal liability notices,
- VAT and PAYE security
- tax tribunals
Speak to our tax expert Andy Lynch today. Andy spent 18 years at HMRC as part of the special investigations unit and is part of our brilliant defence team at FWJ.
FWJ did precisely what it set out to do. I am extremely grateful for its assistance.
A client who had received a Request for Security from HMRC for a sum that would have caused their company severe financial difficulties. We helped them to have the entire bill withdrawn
