Lost Appeal Against Late SA

ILW

Commercial law does not apply to government statute.

A government body can and will charge fines and penalties.

John_Pierpoint

We have got the argument back to
"Is the state made for man or man for the state"
Take way enough freedom from the individual and the state does indeed fall apart.
Why is the tax take as a percentage of GDP well on its way to doubling since the 1960s?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Freedom_Day#Tax_Freedom_Day_around_the_world

We are creating perverse incentives if we allow HMRC to raise funds by way of penalties.

My local council has extended parking restrictions until midnight. Why? Well it is not because the town centre is choked by irresponsible parking - could it be to raise more tax following the freezing of Council Tax?

Who cares? The tax collectors playing game keeper or the accountants playing poacher?
I suggest that both parties have a vested interest in making the system as extensive and complex as possible.

John_Pierpoint

ic wrote: »

Fines are laid down in law, and are no different to say a speeding fine - they exist to deter people from breaking the law,

This is where we differ.

In my opinion speed cameras should be used to discourage idiot drivers from killing or maiming other users of the highway, not as a regressive tax to raise revenue.

Any way we are getting off the topic, so I will leave it there.

chrismac1

True they are laid down in law. So are the PAYE penalties applied to thousands of businesses. Some stick, some do not.

In throwing out the PAYE fines completely, the judges made the point that the fines were a clear breach of HMRC's own policy. HMRC policy is that the purpose of fines is to encourage compliance, not revenue generation.

In CIS tax, fines can be totally disproportionate to the amount of tax involved, sometimes running to over £10,000 within 12 months for just a few hundred pounds of tax due. Once again there are examples where these hefty fines have been thrown out - where HMRC have not themselves backed down, as they did in one case of mine to the tune of £2,800.

With self-assessment we are in new territory. Anyone in HMRC who expects to get all of the money with no major legal challenges to these fines in the next 2 years should emigrate to Greece as they are already in Cloud Cuckoo Land so might as well go the whole hog.