Regulation affecting clients
Your article on Mifid II was very interesting and is a subject that has personally caused me so much frustration over the past few months. (‘Signs Mifid II has damaged the advice sector’, Jan 30).
I thoroughly love being able to advise clients and give them some information they never knew to reaffirm my standing as someone that can help provide a solution. I now spend my days writing reports that hardly anyone reads to justify my existence and my costs, which have never been an issue in more than 30 years of existing as an IFA.
My annoyance is that I no longer have the time to physically do my job of advising, meaning my very own clients are getting less of a service than they ever have been.
Does your car provider write to you every year to tell you how much it costs to keep it on your drive?
Common sense seems to have gone out of the window.
I want my existence to be about looking after and advising my clients, not justifying my past 12 months’ existence.
However, it is simply impossible to do both without paying for extra staff, which makes it even harder to justify.
Jack Stacey
No empathy from HMRC
Regarding the article ‘Warning sounded as loan charge victims asked to waive rights’ (Dec 4 2019).
I am a 31-year-old male social worker. I moved to London from my hometown Gloucester four years ago after obtaining employment initially as a contractor.
I was advised I had to use an umbrella company and they would act as my employer and thus pay me and handle all tax affairs, and I was paying them to do so.
I had never heard of an umbrella company prior to commencement of this role and in my ignorance assumed all my tax affairs were in order.
I had no correspondence from HM Revenue & Customs to suggest at any time there were any irregularities with my tax.
I was with the umbrella company for two years before going permanent with the company directly.
Fast forward to January 31 2020, I receive the loan charge letter from HMRC.
I didn’t really understand it at the time, but having researched extensively since then, it has pretty much turned my world upside down.
Potentially, I am looking at two years’ worth of tax to pay back or a fight against the bully boys, which I stand almost no chance of winning.
I face the prospect of losing all my savings; worse still, being in debt. For context, my take home was actually still no better under the umbrella than now when I am permanent.
The company who is doing this has ceased trading and passed its customers onto a new company who, lo and behold, are trading out of the same premises.
Yet, instead of going after the people who are responsible for paying the employees’ tax, they expect the employee to accept liability for something I’m sure 99 per cent in my industry are not complicit in, and, nine times out of 10, not even aware of.
This is ruining my life both mentally and financially and has put the mental health of my mum at risk of further breakdown.
I am still in the process of deciding what course of action to take. But it seemsI don’t really have many options.
I hope this email serves asa stark reminder that, including myself, there are thousands of innocent people getting caught up in something they were totally unaware of.
I find it disgusting, the lack of compassion and empathy HMRC and government are showing to the victims, while pretty much letting the culprits off scot-free.
Name and address supplied
Extracting more tax
Not that long ago, the Conservatives proposed abolishing inheritance tax, describing it as an abomination.
Now, proposals are being made to impose an immediate 10 per cent tax on gifts over £30,000 during your lifetime, in addition to taxing your estate when dead (‘MPs call for inheritance tax to be cut in radical overhaul’ Jan 29).
The proposals include removing most IHT allowances (whatever that means) and imposing a flat tax of 10 per cent up to £2m and 20 per cent above that.
So if I understand these proposals correctly, we will pay income tax, national insurance, stamp duty land tax, and capital gains tax on creating personal wealth (nothing new there).
Then we will be paying an immediate tax if we spend our money how we want (by helping our children buy a property, for example) during our lifetime.
Then when we pop our clogs they will ravage what is left.
I can’t believe that this administration could think we are all so stupid as to accept a so-called simplification that is really designed to extract more tax.
I suggest they go back to the drawing board and encourage wealth creation, rather than wealth extraction.
Clive Fox
Use fines for compensation
It seems to me that one of the best ways of reducing the burden on the financial services industry would be to use the fines that are imposed to compensate the people who have suffered losses (‘FSCS boss regrets ‘burden’ of advice levy’ Feb 05).
This makes far more sense than using them to bolster the HMRC coffers.
Name and address supplied
