Independent Loan Charge Review

The Government has announced that it has commissioned an independent review of the loan charge scheme.

The Loan Charge Scheme has been seen by many as controversial due to the fact that many parties believe that the legislation is retrospective.  Accordingly this independent review will be welcome by many people affected by the scheme, which is scheduled to be completed by mid-November.

HMRC’s position on the matter is as follows:

Customers in the settlement process have the option to either pause the settlement process and wait for the outcome of the review before making a decision on settlement or the option of proceeding and finalising settlement before the outcome of the independent review.

For those in the process of settling who have paused settlement, HMRC will continue its existing practice of not charging statutory late payment interest from 1 October 2018, or if later, the month in which the individual provided the required settlement information to HMRC. They will not need to complete an additional information return by 30 September 2019. 

The review is expected to conclude in the mid-November and published guidance can be found online at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/disguised-remuneration-independent-loan-charge-review.

If you have been affected by the loan charge scheme and would like to discuss the options available to you, please do not hesitate to contact Chris Parkman by telephone on 01305 458383 or by email at chris@purnells.co.uk