This week I chaired a harrowing meeting in Parliament, listening to testimony from eight victims of the Loan Charge. This refers to a retrospective tax applied to close down and recover money from people – largely the self-employed – who had arranged their affairs in good faith and upon what appeared legitimate advice from professionals, often those giving them contracts or placing them in so-called umbrella companies.
Ninety-three percent of people affected say that the risks weren’t explained to them at the time and that they were reassured arrangements were fully compliant with the law and with HMRC, legally approved, with little or no risk.
Each and every one of the witnesses we heard from were in unthinkably horrendous positions, retrospectively being asked to pay amounts that would see them have to see their homes to get close to paying them off. Hundreds of thousands of Pounds in some instances. Of the estimated 60,000 victims across the country, we have already tragically seen 10 suicides and from what I have seen and heard from other victims, I am genuinely scared there will be more.
Lives ruined, stress, anxiety and wider mental health crises brought about. Relationships broken under the strain of a heavy handed HMRC hounding people for money they never thought they owed and in some cases more than they even earned in the first place.
These are people from all walks of life, from social workers to agency nurses, IT consultants to insurance professionals. All thought they were doing the right thing and now hounded.
Think about it in principle. This is like the speed limit changing on a road from 60mph to 50mph and the police then prosecuting everyone who drove at 60mph for the decade BEFORE the change. It is absolutely crazy.
To my mind, the Loan Charge is the next big scandal, on par with the likes of Horizon. If this new Government wants to stop talking the language of fairness and actually deliver it, a good place to start would be sorting out the Loan Charge mess and delivering justice to every single victim caught up in it.
