Regular readers will know that we have been reporting on HMRC’s published list of “named tax avoidance schemes” since it’s inception in April 2022. Although it is not a fully comprehensive list we have always supported it as a step in the right direction to help people who might otherwise be unwittingly caught up in dubious schemes.
We are now u-turning our view, because the list is actually a farce!
We have just learned that details of the first named schemes have now been removed as it’s 12 months since they were published. This is in line with the requirements of the Finance Act 2021.
This means that known tax avoidance scheme promoters are only ever listed for one year, after which point they are removed and free to continue trading in the same guise. It also means that HMRC’s list will never be comprehensive and therefore never useful no matter how many schemes are added, because there will always be a continual cycle of old ones being removed.
We have tried really hard to support HMRC with this initiative because we believed in the long term potential for it to be effective. However we were wrong; it is actually a farce.
If you want to know who has been removed from the list, check out our original article here.
Should you wish to check out the current list of named tax avoidance schemes, you can do so here.
