In R v Quillan and others [2015] EWCA Crim 538 (25 March 2015) the Court of Appeal found that a scheme to defraud HMRC was not a ‘sham’.
The allegations against the defendants were that two schemes were set up with the dishonest intention of securing the payment of income tax relief at source (RAS) from HMRC by paying the same amount into pension schemes repeatedly each time triggering a payment by HMRC. This was achieved by arranging for the pension schemes to borrow and lend circularly.
The court noted the ‘curious’ features of the scheme. For instance because of the high rate of interest on some of the loans the schemes were never going to generate a pension.
The court observed however that the claims for RAS had been made in accordance with the specified statutory procedure by the duly appointed administrators of...
