I specialise in dispute resolution, and I am working for clients facing a range of interventions on everything from ‘main purpose’ anti-avoidance challenges to the first criminal investigation into suspected offences by a multinational corporation under s 45 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017.
There’s actually a lot of similarity between the structure of anti-avoidance legislation and the criminal law: anti-avoidance rules have an effective ‘guilty act’ and ‘guilty mind’ element to them.
My day job also involves leading a team of more than 200 people, including lawyers and accountants. That is a lot of appraisals, objectives and promotions to consider, but it is immensely satisfying to see individuals develop and grow.
If you could make one change to a tax law or practice, what would it be?
Replace the ‘main purpose’ test with something more akin to the ‘main benefit contrary to tax policy’ test in the new DAC 6 regulations. That test is easier to work with in practice.
Let me also pose this question. If the government introduces a tax relief to encourage a change in behaviour, and pops in a main purpose TAAR to protect against misuse, when does a desire to access the relief of itself amount to such a misuse (thus denying the relief)? That’s not an easy question to answer in many cases.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career?
That quite a lot of people suffer from imposter syndrome.
It would have been great to know all that I know now – maybe then I might have achieved (even just once!) an exceptional performance grade in my annual appraisal.
Has a recent tax case caught your eye?
It’s not that recent but Barty Party [2017] UKFTT 697. Apart from it being a difficult case name to cite in a serious meeting, the tribunal sensibly held that HMRC has to set out a first blush case for suspecting deliberate conduct if it wants to access data going back 20 years, despite the legislation itself not expressly placing such a limitation. The tribunal held that it was an inherent part of the requirement for HMRC to show it needed the information to ‘check a tax position’.
The legislation does require authorised officer consent before data older than six years is requested, but there is no public guidance about when such consent should be given.
Are there any new rules that are causing a particular problem?
All new rules cause problems. The day they don’t will be the day that my job becomes obsolete. But the standout areas are IR35 and the pillar one proposals (when settled).
What should we look out for in 2020?
On evasion, HMRC criminal investigations into large companies. On avoidance, clearer HMRC thinking on what constitutes a main purpose of obtaining a tax advantage.
And finally, you might not know this about me but…
I am half-Scouse and half-Spanish. And when I was younger I wanted to grow up to be a tax diva...
I specialise in dispute resolution, and I am working for clients facing a range of interventions on everything from ‘main purpose’ anti-avoidance challenges to the first criminal investigation into suspected offences by a multinational corporation under s 45 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017.
There’s actually a lot of similarity between the structure of anti-avoidance legislation and the criminal law: anti-avoidance rules have an effective ‘guilty act’ and ‘guilty mind’ element to them.
My day job also involves leading a team of more than 200 people, including lawyers and accountants. That is a lot of appraisals, objectives and promotions to consider, but it is immensely satisfying to see individuals develop and grow.
If you could make one change to a tax law or practice, what would it be?
Replace the ‘main purpose’ test with something more akin to the ‘main benefit contrary to tax policy’ test in the new DAC 6 regulations. That test is easier to work with in practice.
Let me also pose this question. If the government introduces a tax relief to encourage a change in behaviour, and pops in a main purpose TAAR to protect against misuse, when does a desire to access the relief of itself amount to such a misuse (thus denying the relief)? That’s not an easy question to answer in many cases.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career?
That quite a lot of people suffer from imposter syndrome.
It would have been great to know all that I know now – maybe then I might have achieved (even just once!) an exceptional performance grade in my annual appraisal.
Has a recent tax case caught your eye?
It’s not that recent but Barty Party [2017] UKFTT 697. Apart from it being a difficult case name to cite in a serious meeting, the tribunal sensibly held that HMRC has to set out a first blush case for suspecting deliberate conduct if it wants to access data going back 20 years, despite the legislation itself not expressly placing such a limitation. The tribunal held that it was an inherent part of the requirement for HMRC to show it needed the information to ‘check a tax position’.
The legislation does require authorised officer consent before data older than six years is requested, but there is no public guidance about when such consent should be given.
Are there any new rules that are causing a particular problem?
All new rules cause problems. The day they don’t will be the day that my job becomes obsolete. But the standout areas are IR35 and the pillar one proposals (when settled).
What should we look out for in 2020?
On evasion, HMRC criminal investigations into large companies. On avoidance, clearer HMRC thinking on what constitutes a main purpose of obtaining a tax advantage.
And finally, you might not know this about me but…
I am half-Scouse and half-Spanish. And when I was younger I wanted to grow up to be a tax diva...
