Ingenious, an investment firm which sold and promoted film partnership tax schemes and which was used by footballers David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, has said it will appeal against a court judgement in its long-running dispute with HM Revenue & Customs.
It follows reports that investors in the film financing scheme, which helped product blockbusters such as Avatar, Life of Pi and Die Hard 4, had lost a legal bid to overturn a £700m tax bill.
Celebrities such as David Beckham, Gary Lineker, Ant & Dec and Bob Geldof were among 1,400 people who had at least £100,000 each tied up in the scheme, which HMRC said was a means of avoiding tax.
In response to these reports, Ingenious has said the judge was simply clarifying a technical point from the original decision from last year.
It added that it would be taking HMRC to court again to challenge the court decisions.
Neil Forster, chief executive of Ingenious, said: “The tribunal’s clarification of a technical matter has been presented in the media in a wholly-biased manner which misrepresents the facts and misleads the reader.
“We will be appealing the entire decision of the tribunal.
“This follows a recent successful appeal brought by Ingenious against HMRC which led to the judges of the Supreme Court unanimously ruling in favour of Ingenious that HMRC had acted unlawfully in a briefing to the press.”
In August 2016 the tax tribunal has ruled the Ingenious Media Film partnerships, which was designed to reduce investors’ tax liability, were in fact trading with a view to a profit.
This crucial question meant the partnerships have escaped being labelled as tax avoidance.
But the tribunal has effectively reduced the amount of money the investors can claim back through tax, a move which a tax expert has said could leave some making a loss.
Later in the year the Supreme Court ruled HMRC unlawfully disclosed confidential information about the film production partnerships that Ingenious operated in an ‘off the record’ background briefing.
damian.fantato@ft.com
