They invest in hundreds of films and also in clean energy and wind farms. The figures are huge.
If government sets up tax breaks to get people to invest in these industries not sure why there is all this furore that people have invested. It turns out this particular scheme (and I have not read the full details of why this one was affected) was not compliant but am sure that their other schemes will still run with people getting tax incentives as set out by the goverment previously. Imagine there is just as likely to be a claim from the investors against ingenious too.
If you look at the accounts of the entity and the incredible amounts that were borrowed against their investment, to suggest it was remotely similar to an ISA or other tax scheme (eg EIS) is highly disingenuous - if it looks and quacks like a duck (or tax dodge in this case) then it probably is.
I thought it was an EIS Scheme.
I cant see what the problem is. These schemes are all legal & have pre-approval by HMRC. I believe the one is question just went a bit too far & why HMRC challenged it. The investors are doing nothing illegal & it was the investment firm (Ingenious) who were at fault.
There isn't anyone on here who wouldn't do the same in their position. Most of us are not in the position to have a few million spare, but if you had a spare £50k & put it in an ISA or a Pension so that you didn't have to pay tax on the interest does that make you a tax dodger ?
Speak for yourself. If I was lucky enough to earn tens of thousands of pounds a week for kicking a ball around a pitch or singing a song someone else wrote for me I wouldn't be spending my spare time finding ways to avoid paying tax that could be spent on making the country a less depressing place to live. Tax avoidance might not be illegal but it's not moral either.
If you look at the accounts of the entity and the incredible amounts that were borrowed against their investment, to suggest it was remotely similar to an ISA or other tax scheme (eg EIS) is highly disingenuous - if it looks and quacks like a duck (or tax dodge in this case) then it probably is.
I thought it was an EIS Scheme.
I cant see what the problem is. These schemes are all legal & have pre-approval by HMRC. I believe the one is question just went a bit too far & why HMRC challenged it. The investors are doing nothing illegal & it was the investment firm (Ingenious) who were at fault.
There isn't anyone on here who wouldn't do the same in their position. Most of us are not in the position to have a few million spare, but if you had a spare £50k & put it in an ISA or a Pension so that you didn't have to pay tax on the interest does that make you a tax dodger ?
Speak for yourself. If I was lucky enough to earn tens of thousands of pounds a week for kicking a ball around a pitch or singing a song someone else wrote for me I wouldn't be spending my spare time finding ways to avoid paying tax that could be spent on making the country a less depressing place to live. Tax avoidance might not be illegal but it's not moral either.
First one of these that goes on about the shambles of the NHS on twitter is getting hammered.
They invest in hundreds of films and also in clean energy and wind farms. The figures are huge.
If government sets up tax breaks to get people to invest in these industries not sure why there is all this furore that people have invested. It turns out this particular scheme (and I have not read the full details of why this one was affected) was not compliant but am sure that their other schemes will still run with people getting tax incentives as set out by the goverment previously. Imagine there is just as likely to be a claim from the investors against ingenious too.
This. Surely there are legitimate schemes that offer investment in return for tax breaks. How can you a legit one from a dodgy one? It was this scheme like something out of The Producers
If you look at the accounts of the entity and the incredible amounts that were borrowed against their investment, to suggest it was remotely similar to an ISA or other tax scheme (eg EIS) is highly disingenuous - if it looks and quacks like a duck (or tax dodge in this case) then it probably is.
I thought it was an EIS Scheme.
I cant see what the problem is. These schemes are all legal & have pre-approval by HMRC. I believe the one is question just went a bit too far & why HMRC challenged it. The investors are doing nothing illegal & it was the investment firm (Ingenious) who were at fault.
There isn't anyone on here who wouldn't do the same in their position. Most of us are not in the position to have a few million spare, but if you had a spare £50k & put it in an ISA or a Pension so that you didn't have to pay tax on the interest does that make you a tax dodger ?
Speak for yourself. If I was lucky enough to earn tens of thousands of pounds a week for kicking a ball around a pitch or singing a song someone else wrote for me I wouldn't be spending my spare time finding ways to avoid paying tax that could be spent on making the country a less depressing place to live. Tax avoidance might not be illegal but it's not moral either.
First one of these that goes on about the shambles of the NHS on twitter is getting hammered.
My money (the bit that hasn't been taxed) is on Barton
Not sure it can be compared to an Isa if they have to pay it back. Clearly they are doing something wrong. Like others have said, If I Earned that amount of money then I'd not be looking at ways round paying my tax. However, was there any need to print Dean Richards name? He sadly passed away and hasn't committed a crime, again thats "The Sun" showing their class.
Given how high your taxes are in Europe, "tax avoidance" should be considered a "right of man."
Are you American?
Yep!
Perhaps we should get rid of tax completely or maybe just for rich people. We could follow the wonderful healthcare and education system that the US has and have a President with the insight of a dog turd.
But an accountant's job is to reduce your tax laibility. In our case, our accountant does not have the opportunity available to these people. It could be a fair defence though that individuals didn't know their accountant was doing this, although if I was an accountant to Ant and Dec, I would want to let them know how much I was saving them, especially if it made me look clever as I would want to keep them as customers. The solution is ultimately to tighten teh tax laws - when there is an inadvertant tax break that has been identified it should be closed off immediately.
Little attention is given to the array of perfectly legal tax breaks that are available to business. Tax breaks such as Enterprise Zone relief, Employment Allowance, Investment Allowance, Capital Allowances, Enterprise Investment Scheme etc., etc., They are ostensibly to encourage investments in certain areas and incentivise venture capital. In truth, if we reduced tax rates and abolished the allowances the tax take could be increased and behaviours would change because the savings in tax are no longer worth the effort and the return on capital, net of tax, is incentive enough.
Incidentally, these high tax payers are taxed at an effective rate of 60%. If it was 40% the schemes would never have seen the light of day. This is why more tax revenue is collected when high earners are not incentivised to try and avoid it and accountants can't justify the cost and effort to develop and run tax avoidance schemes for marginal tax savings. Corporation tax is now over £8bn more than in 2008 despite corporation tax falling from 30% to 19%.
So if you want to really reduce tax avoidance and evasion and optimise aggregate tax revenue, simplify tax with a single rate that works the same whether you are employed, self employed or an investor. Tax impacts behaviours, ask charities whether they raise higher donations from low tax rich Americans or relatively high taxed rich Brits.
The facts prove that you voluntarily give more money to help others the more of your earned money you are allowed to keep. In the latest official table of rankings for charitable giving the lower taxed UK scores 54, but for the high taxed Swedes it's 45 and the even lower taxed yanks in the US it's 61.
Little attention is given to the array of perfectly legal tax breaks that are available to business. Tax breaks such as Enterprise Zone relief, Employment Allowance, Investment Allowance, Capital Allowances, Enterprise Investment Scheme etc., etc., They are ostensibly to encourage investments in certain areas and incentivise venture capital. In truth, if we reduced tax rates and abolished the allowances the tax take could be increased and behaviours would change because the savings in tax are no longer worth the effort and the return on capital, net of tax, is incentive enough.
Incidentally, these high tax payers are taxed at an effective rate of 60%. If it was 40% the schemes would never have seen the light of day. This is why more tax revenue is collected when high earners are not incentivised to try and avoid it and accountants can't justify the cost and effort to develop and run tax avoidance schemes for marginal tax savings. Corporation tax is now over £8bn more than in 2008 despite corporation tax falling from 30% to 19%.
So if you want to really reduce tax avoidance and evasion and optimise aggregate tax revenue, simplify tax with a single rate that works the same whether you are employed, self employed or an investor. Tax impacts behaviours, ask charities whether they raise higher donations from low tax rich Americans or relatively high taxed rich Brits.
The facts prove that you voluntarily give more money to help others the more of your earned money you are allowed to keep. In the latest official table of rankings for charitable giving the lower taxed UK scores 54, but for the high taxed Swedes it's 45 and the even lower taxed yanks in the US it's 61.
Little attention is given to the array of perfectly legal tax breaks that are available to business. Tax breaks such as Enterprise Zone relief, Employment Allowance, Investment Allowance, Capital Allowances, Enterprise Investment Scheme etc., etc., They are ostensibly to encourage investments in certain areas and incentivise venture capital. In truth, if we reduced tax rates and abolished the allowances the tax take could be increased and behaviours would change because the savings in tax are no longer worth the effort and the return on capital, net of tax, is incentive enough.
Incidentally, these high tax payers are taxed at an effective rate of 60%. If it was 40% the schemes would never have seen the light of day. This is why more tax revenue is collected when high earners are not incentivised to try and avoid it and accountants can't justify the cost and effort to develop and run tax avoidance schemes for marginal tax savings. Corporation tax is now over £8bn more than in 2008 despite corporation tax falling from 30% to 19%.
So if you want to really reduce tax avoidance and evasion and optimise aggregate tax revenue, simplify tax with a single rate that works the same whether you are employed, self employed or an investor. Tax impacts behaviours, ask charities whether they raise higher donations from low tax rich Americans or relatively high taxed rich Brits.
The facts prove that you voluntarily give more money to help others the more of your earned money you are allowed to keep. In the latest official table of rankings for charitable giving the lower taxed UK scores 54, but for the high taxed Swedes it's 45 and the even lower taxed yanks in the US it's 61.
Why 60%?
Loss of the personal allowance once income is over £130k .
Probably a little known fact but anyone earning over £225kpa can only invest £10k pa into a pension, therefore forcing high earners to seek tax efficient investment elsewhere............but we can't mention things like that on here can we.
Little attention is given to the array of perfectly legal tax breaks that are available to business. Tax breaks such as Enterprise Zone relief, Employment Allowance, Investment Allowance, Capital Allowances, Enterprise Investment Scheme etc., etc., They are ostensibly to encourage investments in certain areas and incentivise venture capital. In truth, if we reduced tax rates and abolished the allowances the tax take could be increased and behaviours would change because the savings in tax are no longer worth the effort and the return on capital, net of tax, is incentive enough.
Incidentally, these high tax payers are taxed at an effective rate of 60%. If it was 40% the schemes would never have seen the light of day. This is why more tax revenue is collected when high earners are not incentivised to try and avoid it and accountants can't justify the cost and effort to develop and run tax avoidance schemes for marginal tax savings. Corporation tax is now over £8bn more than in 2008 despite corporation tax falling from 30% to 19%.
So if you want to really reduce tax avoidance and evasion and optimise aggregate tax revenue, simplify tax with a single rate that works the same whether you are employed, self employed or an investor. Tax impacts behaviours, ask charities whether they raise higher donations from low tax rich Americans or relatively high taxed rich Brits.
The facts prove that you voluntarily give more money to help others the more of your earned money you are allowed to keep. In the latest official table of rankings for charitable giving the lower taxed UK scores 54, but for the high taxed Swedes it's 45 and the even lower taxed yanks in the US it's 61.
Why 60%?
Loss of the personal allowance once income is over £130k .
Probably a little known fact but anyone earning over £225kpa can only invest £10k pa into a pension, therefore forcing high earners to seek tax efficient investment elsewhere............but we can't mention things like that on here can we.
The 60% rate is only between £100k and £123k it then reverts back to 40% until £150k and then 45% from £150k and above. Of course there is 2% additional NI on all of those as well.
On pension it starts to reduce from £150k from the £40k allowed amount and it's not just on salary. It's a little ludicrous to restrict it like this for the higher earners, if I pay more than £10k into pension i'd be taxed at 47% and then when I draw that at retirement I'd be taxed again at 40%. Effectively it's a 68.2% tax rate why would anyone bother to invest into a pension and tie money up until at least 55 if effectively you are double taxed on it?
All of the above changes over the past 7 years have increased the tax for higher earners considerably, is it any wonder many look for 'legal' tax loopholes to reduce their taxation.
I'd also agree as I've mentioned before that much of these reports show that the increases proposed by Labour won't yield anywhere near what they say.
If you look at the accounts of the entity and the incredible amounts that were borrowed against their investment, to suggest it was remotely similar to an ISA or other tax scheme (eg EIS) is highly disingenuous - if it looks and quacks like a duck (or tax dodge in this case) then it probably is.
I thought it was an EIS Scheme.
I cant see what the problem is. These schemes are all legal & have pre-approval by HMRC. I believe the one is question just went a bit too far & why HMRC challenged it. The investors are doing nothing illegal & it was the investment firm (Ingenious) who were at fault.
There isn't anyone on here who wouldn't do the same in their position. Most of us are not in the position to have a few million spare, but if you had a spare £50k & put it in an ISA or a Pension so that you didn't have to pay tax on the interest does that make you a tax dodger ?
I think that's a little unfair on the morals of many people on CL.
Maybe you would be happy to use what is, obviously, a way to avoid tax but not everyone else shares your moral judgement and/or greed on this.
- FINANCE firm Ingenious sold tax-efficient investments in Hollywood films such as Avatar.
- Sums invested ranged from £160,000 to over £60million.Stars expected to benefit from tax breaks introduced in 1997 to support the British film industry.
- They were able to claim their outlay as tax relief over a period of 15 years.
- Tax had to be paid at the end of the 15 years, but investors could make more money out of the delayed tax payment than they were eligible to pay.
- It is not claimed the schemes were doing anything illegal.
Can anyone that has more knowledge of how this scheme worked provide a link that explains how it works in more detail that the average Sun reader could understand please?
- FINANCE firm Ingenious sold tax-efficient investments in Hollywood films such as Avatar.
- Sums invested ranged from £160,000 to over £60million.Stars expected to benefit from tax breaks introduced in 1997 to support the British film industry.
- They were able to claim their outlay as tax relief over a period of 15 years.
- Tax had to be paid at the end of the 15 years, but investors could make more money out of the delayed tax payment than they were eligible to pay.
- It is not claimed the schemes were doing anything illegal.
That last line says it all for me...
Does it though?
It's not illegal what RD and KM have done but I think we all agree that we are not, terribly, happy with their actions either.
The c. £700m of 'unpaid' tax could have been used to fund he NHS and/or put more Police on the streets of Manchester or London. To say it's ok for these millionaires to have even more money that they don't need at the expense of society is fine, if that's what people believe, it's just not what I believe.
Just to complete the picture a little bit, the specific partnership which was investigated by HMRC had over 1,000 members over time (most of whom were neither footballers nor famous).
Can anyone that has more knowledge of how this scheme worked provide a link that explains how it works in more detail that the average Sun reader could understand please?
My understanding is as follows:
To use a simple example, imagine you had £1m of income you wanted to protect from tax - however then also imagine there was an entity (probably a bank) willing to lend you say 10x that amount allowing you to invest £11m into the supposed tax-exempt partnership (by leveraging up like this, they could offset £11m of income against tax).
If it had worked as planned, the pool of funds raised (including your £11m) was invested in various film rights which generated a fairly steady income which could be used to offset the interest on the loans.
However because HRMC have ruled the scheme to not be tax exempt after all, the leveraged 'income' which you received (and used to offset the loan interest) has been ruled fully taxable hence why the sums involved are so astronomical.
In addition the initial tax offset you thought you had received has gone too!
Can anyone that has more knowledge of how this scheme worked provide a link that explains how it works in more detail that the average Sun reader could understand please?
My understanding is as follows:
To use a simple example, imagine you had £1m of income you wanted to protect from tax - however then also imagine there was an entity (probably a bank) willing to lend you say 10x that amount allowing you to invest £11m into the supposed tax-exempt partnership (by leveraging up like this, they could offset £11m of income against tax).
If it had worked as planned, the pool of funds raised (including your £11m) was invested in various film rights which generated a fairly steady income which could be used to offset the interest on the loans.
However because HRMC have ruled the scheme to not be tax exempt after all, the leveraged 'income' which you received (and used to offset the loan interest) has been ruled fully taxable hence why the sums involved are so astronomical.
In addition the initial tax offset you thought you had received has gone too!
Can anyone that has more knowledge of how this scheme worked provide a link that explains how it works in more detail that the average Sun reader could understand please?
My understanding is as follows:
To use a simple example, imagine you had £1m of income you wanted to protect from tax - however then also imagine there was an entity (probably a bank) willing to lend you say 10x that amount allowing you to invest £11m into the supposed tax-exempt partnership (by leveraging up like this, they could offset £11m of income against tax).
If it had worked as planned, the pool of funds raised (including your £11m) was invested in various film rights which generated a fairly steady income which could be used to offset the interest on the loans.
However because HRMC have ruled the scheme to not be tax exempt after all, the leveraged 'income' which you received (and used to offset the loan interest) has been ruled fully taxable hence why the sums involved are so astronomical.
In addition the initial tax offset you thought you had received has gone too!
Thanks NYA.
There were plenty of other ex-CAFC players involved (not listed in the Sun article)....
- FINANCE firm Ingenious sold tax-efficient investments in Hollywood films such as Avatar.
- Sums invested ranged from £160,000 to over £60million.Stars expected to benefit from tax breaks introduced in 1997 to support the British film industry.
- They were able to claim their outlay as tax relief over a period of 15 years.
- Tax had to be paid at the end of the 15 years, but investors could make more money out of the delayed tax payment than they were eligible to pay.
- It is not claimed the schemes were doing anything illegal.
That last line says it all for me...
Does it though?
It's not illegal what RD and KM have done but I think we all agree that we are not, terribly, happy with their actions either.
The c. £700m of 'unpaid' tax could have been used to fund he NHS and/or put more Police on the streets of Manchester or London. To say it's ok for these millionaires to have even more money that they don't need at the expense of society is fine, if that's what people believe, it's just not what I believe.
And I am the least Socialist person I know!
Not happy about it, but if it's legal all we can hope is that it gets rectified to ensure it can't happen again.
Comments
If government sets up tax breaks to get people to invest in these industries not sure why there is all this furore that people have invested. It turns out this particular scheme (and I have not read the full details of why this one was affected) was not compliant but am sure that their other schemes will still run with people getting tax incentives as set out by the goverment previously. Imagine there is just as likely to be a claim from the investors against ingenious too.
http://www.danielgeey.com/image-rights-in-uk-football-explained/
Incidentally, these high tax payers are taxed at an effective rate of 60%. If it was 40% the schemes would never have seen the light of day. This is why more tax revenue is collected when high earners are not incentivised to try and avoid it and accountants can't justify the cost and effort to develop and run tax avoidance schemes for marginal tax savings. Corporation tax is now over £8bn more than in 2008 despite corporation tax falling from 30% to 19%.
So if you want to really reduce tax avoidance and evasion and optimise aggregate tax revenue, simplify tax with a single rate that works the same whether you are employed, self employed or an investor. Tax impacts behaviours, ask charities whether they raise higher donations from low tax rich Americans or relatively high taxed rich Brits.
The facts prove that you voluntarily give more money to help others the more of your earned money you are allowed to keep. In the latest official table of rankings for charitable giving the lower taxed UK scores 54, but for the high taxed Swedes it's 45 and the even lower taxed yanks in the US it's 61.
Probably a little known fact but anyone earning over £225kpa can only invest £10k pa into a pension, therefore forcing high earners to seek tax efficient investment elsewhere............but we can't mention things like that on here can we.
On pension it starts to reduce from £150k from the £40k allowed amount and it's not just on salary. It's a little ludicrous to restrict it like this for the higher earners, if I pay more than £10k into pension i'd be taxed at 47% and then when I draw that at retirement I'd be taxed again at 40%. Effectively it's a 68.2% tax rate why would anyone bother to invest into a pension and tie money up until at least 55 if effectively you are double taxed on it?
All of the above changes over the past 7 years have increased the tax for higher earners considerably, is it any wonder many look for 'legal' tax loopholes to reduce their taxation.
I'd also agree as I've mentioned before that much of these reports show that the increases proposed by Labour won't yield anywhere near what they say.
Maybe you would be happy to use what is, obviously, a way to avoid tax but not everyone else shares your moral judgement and/or greed on this.
- FINANCE firm Ingenious sold tax-efficient investments in Hollywood films such as Avatar.
- Sums invested ranged from £160,000 to over £60million.Stars expected to benefit from tax breaks introduced in 1997 to support the British film industry.
- They were able to claim their outlay as tax relief over a period of 15 years.
- Tax had to be paid at the end of the 15 years, but investors could make more money out of the delayed tax payment than they were eligible to pay.
- It is not claimed the schemes were doing anything illegal.
That last line says it all for me...
It's not illegal what RD and KM have done but I think we all agree that we are not, terribly, happy with their actions either.
The c. £700m of 'unpaid' tax could have been used to fund he NHS and/or put more Police on the streets of Manchester or London. To say it's ok for these millionaires to have even more money that they don't need at the expense of society is fine, if that's what people believe, it's just not what I believe.
And I am the least Socialist person I know!
To use a simple example, imagine you had £1m of income you wanted to protect from tax - however then also imagine there was an entity (probably a bank) willing to lend you say 10x that amount allowing you to invest £11m into the supposed tax-exempt partnership (by leveraging up like this, they could offset £11m of income against tax).
If it had worked as planned, the pool of funds raised (including your £11m) was invested in various film rights which generated a fairly steady income which could be used to offset the interest on the loans.
However because HRMC have ruled the scheme to not be tax exempt after all, the leveraged 'income' which you received (and used to offset the loan interest) has been ruled fully taxable hence why the sums involved are so astronomical.
In addition the initial tax offset you thought you had received has gone too!