UK and International Tax news
Gaines Cooper Update
Wednesday 18th August 2010
Further to our UK Tax News article of February 2010, in which we reported that the taxpayer had lost his appeal for judicial review of how HMRC interpreted their IR20 guidance to determine his residence in the UK for tax purposes in the Court of Appeal, it has recently been confirmed that Mr Gaines-Cooper has been granted leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.
In a press statement, Mr Gaines-Cooper stated that the case raises important issues of clarity, consistency and fairness which are relevant to all taxpayers. He took advice from professionals and relied on their opinions in dealing with HMRC and his advisers, in turn, relied on practice statements as published by HMRC, when determining his tax liabilities.
He added that “I feel strongly that the lack of transparency in the UK tax system means that no taxpayer can rely on guidance from the UK tax authorities and, as a result, cannot rely on their advisers, even if their position has previously been accepted by HMRC. Moreover, HMRC’s aggressive approach assumes guilt and leaves the taxpayer with the inference that they have deliberately evaded tax. In my case, that is simply wrong. My companies pay taxes in 16 countries, including the UK, but the UK is the one where we have had the most problems and had to pay the most for advisers.”
If you would like to discuss the decision at the Court of Appeal stage in more detail, please contact Keith Rushen on 0044 (0)20 7486 2378
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