Misleading advert promoting avoidance scheme must be pulled, orders watchdog

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld HMRC’s complaint that advertising of a tax avoidance scheme by promoter CDP Tax & Wealth Ltd which trades as Fiducia Wealth and Tax contains misleading claims. The authority ruled that the claims made by Fiducia were misleading and must be withdrawn.

The scheme claimed to use government approved statutory rules that were within the tax legislation to reduce stamp duty land tax bills by 60% on residential property purchases. In practice no duty would be paid on the purchase and Fiducia would keep the balance of 40% as its fee.

In Spotlight 43 HMRC explains that its understanding of the scheme is that it is based on a stamp duty land tax exemption when mortgage providers take an interest in a property as security for a mortgage. Fiducia was selling a scheme that misused this exemption through a complex series...