Richard Curtis

Two cases on VAT avoidance schemes: Blackqueen Limited (17680); and The University of Huddersfield Higher Education Corporation (17854).
Dodgy motor scheme?
A case of some notoriety at the VAT Tribunal, made available last summer, concerned a convoluted tax avoidance scheme entered into by a group of companies within the motor trade. The purpose of this scheme was to enable the group to obtain full input tax credit for VAT purposes on purchases of vehicles, but to account for output tax only on the profit margin.

RICHARD CURTIS reports Barclays Mercantile Business Finance Ltd v Mawson (Inspector of Taxes).

The Ramsay doctrine, when applied to a series of transactions that were ostensibly a finance lease, dictated that this was an example of 'financial engineering', rather than expenditure incurred in a trade. The expenditure was not therefore eligible for capital allowances.

RICHARD CURTIS reports the recent decision in Rosemoor Investments Limited (SpC 320).

Trading or investing?

Rosemoor Investments Limited was an investment company and a wholly owned subsidiary of H Limited (an asset finance company) which was in turn owned by W Bank.

RICHARD CURTIS ponders the latest self-assessment tax return filing statistics.

A HACKNEYED JOKE I know, but I have this image of the Revenue employee responsible for improving the early filing of self-assessment tax returns sitting in his office and looking at the submission figures as they come in each week. He must be thinking 'Taxpayers! If it wasn't for taxpayers, I bet we could actually get those wretched returns submitted on time'.

RICHARD CURTIS offers salient points from a Butterworths Tolley conference on corporate tax.

RICHARD CURTIS looks at a section 16 enquiry; is something fishy going on?

Information box re Readers' Forum

Replies to Queries

Replies can be sent by post to Richard Curtis, Lexis Nexis Butterworths Tolley, Tolley House, 2 Addiscombe Road, Croydon CR9 5AF; or e-mailed to: richard.curtis@lexisnexis.co.uk; or faxed to: 020 8212 1910 or 020 8686 3155 for Richard's attention.

When resorting to litigation, it is important to get things right the first time around. RICHARD CURTIS reports Parmar and Others (trading as Ace Knitwear) v Woods.

The High Court upholds penalties in Slater Ltd and others v Beacontree General Commissioners.

SLATER LTD AND six other 'small' companies appealed against penalties determined by the General Commissioners for failure to deliver documents and particulars to the Inland Revenue. The High Court dismissed the taxpayers' appeals that they were not obliged to provide any more information over and above their 'abbreviated' accounts.

I act for a client whose wife recently died quite suddenly. The wife had taken out a number of single premium life policies. One was in her name and invested in Equitable Life. Shortly before her death, she chose to cut her losses and cancel the investment. She received 90 per cent of the original funds invested. (The policy was only three years old at the time.) Had a gain been made this would have been a chargeable event, but how should it be treated in these circumstances?