Disguised remuneration and demand for loan repayment from lender

dh1981

I was previously involved in a disguised remuneration scheme (14 months total and not particularly high paid compared to some others - payments totalling approx. £31k plus interest).


These payments have been fully disclosed to HMRC and I am awaiting details from them as to payment due (along with another issue from a previous year which is unrelated to the loan scheme).


I have now received a letter from a solicitor demanding repayment of the loans and interest within 14 days, threatening bailiffs etc.
Original lender was Garraway Contracts Ltd, who I have tried to contact in previous years that I've been dealing with HMRC but had no response. (adding lender in here in case anyone is going through the same thing and searching for info).


The letter includes an offer of paying £3742.97 by 12th Feb 2020 - which I don't have even if I thought I should pay it.


any idea where I stand with this? I doubt that repaying this amount even if I could afford it would make HMRC go away anyway, so I'd end up paying twice.


I have emailed the solicitor and asked for evidence of loan agreement and of loan payments. I'm desperately trying to find my loan agreement, as I'm pretty sure the loan was deemed repaid during the next working period. i.e. they loaned me one week, then the next week when they received payment from the company I was working through the loan was repaid.


my employment ended in 2013 though, so I'm struggling to find anything.


8 months pregnant, just getting over the stress of dealing with HMRC and pulling equity out of the house to pay what I owe there - I thought that was at least the end of it.


any suggestions/guidance would be appreciated. I hate that I got myself into this situation, but I recognised that something wasn't right and thankfully got myself out of it after a short amount of time. Can't even imagine what some others are going through with this.


just as an addition: I'm absolutely furious that a company that caused all of this, assuring me repeatedly that what they were doing was completely legal etc, seem to have not only got away with this leaving me with a huge tax bill, now think it's appropriate to demand repayment for money which was never actually theirs anyway. Wonder if they have a tax bill to pay.

ciderboy2009

If this all happened in 2013 then I would have thought that there was a good chance of any debt being statute barred. Having said that, I'm not an expert so it would possibly be worth getting some legal advice.

isplumm

try posting on the contractor UK forum ...

https://www.contractoruk.com/forums/

Mark

tehone

isplumm wrote: »

try posting on the contractor UK forum ...

https://www.contractoruk.com/forums/

Mark

Looks like the OP (or someone with the same username) already has posted on there

The advice on there seemed sensible to me fwiw

dh1981

Thank you. I know I'd posted somewhere before about the situation  but couldn't find it, or the most appropriate place to ask about the latest development.