This week's opinion

There was a rather sad tax case report this week – McCormack (TC6443). It involved three individuals who faced unauthorised payment charges and surcharges as a result of their participation in pension liberation arrangements. They were a representative sample of several people who had been caught up in the same schemes. They had been persuaded by apparently genuine advisers with connections to FSA-registered businesses to move their pensions from UK-approved schemes (in one case a teachers’ pension scheme) into others that were said to offer better investment terms or more flexible ways of accessing the fund. At least one of the individuals appears to have lost a large proportion of his money through forex investments and significant amounts were taken in fees. But all of them did receive some money out of their schemes. When HMRC realised what had been happening it raised charges on the individuals on the amounts they...