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Hi all,
I am an IT contractor and back in 2007 I set myself up as self employed through a tax arrangement company called Montpelier, based in the Isle of Man.
They had an arrangement with double taxation trusts which was legal in every wording of the law, via which I could pay an overall much smaller proportion of my income each month as tax while using this scheme. I was guaranteed by Montpelier Ltd that it was all 100% legal, above board and safe.
A couple of years later I stopped using the scheme. However since then, HMRC has changed the legislation retrospectively and are now demanding 35k in unpaid tax from me for the income which should have been taxable in that period with the new retrospective legislation. Montpelier have fought the case for 2 years now in the high courts on my behalf and of all their other clients but it looks like HMRC have now won the case.
Montpelier are still claiming they are going to appeal but a victory is looking unlikely. What I want to know is what I should do, given that this professional company advised me to use a scheme that was 100% legal and safe, which has now made me responsible for this 35k, on top of the commission fees I paid to Montpelier for their services. Can I sue Montpelier for professional negligence or something similar? Or even to work out how much I have paid to them in commission for their services and to claim this back, and use that money to go toward paying my tax bill?
I am an IT contractor and back in 2007 I set myself up as self employed through a tax arrangement company called Montpelier, based in the Isle of Man.
They had an arrangement with double taxation trusts which was legal in every wording of the law, via which I could pay an overall much smaller proportion of my income each month as tax while using this scheme. I was guaranteed by Montpelier Ltd that it was all 100% legal, above board and safe.
A couple of years later I stopped using the scheme. However since then, HMRC has changed the legislation retrospectively and are now demanding 35k in unpaid tax from me for the income which should have been taxable in that period with the new retrospective legislation. Montpelier have fought the case for 2 years now in the high courts on my behalf and of all their other clients but it looks like HMRC have now won the case.
Montpelier are still claiming they are going to appeal but a victory is looking unlikely. What I want to know is what I should do, given that this professional company advised me to use a scheme that was 100% legal and safe, which has now made me responsible for this 35k, on top of the commission fees I paid to Montpelier for their services. Can I sue Montpelier for professional negligence or something similar? Or even to work out how much I have paid to them in commission for their services and to claim this back, and use that money to go toward paying my tax bill?
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