A tax barrister who designed his own tax avoidance scheme and defended it in court against HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has lost his attempt to avoid paying £190,000 in tax.
Rex Bretten QC designed a highly complex scheme which involved setting up trusts and investing £500,000 in discounted securities. He claimed his scheme created a loss of £475,000 which he could set against his income. The tribunal said that the securities had been issued solely to facilitate Bretten's tax avoidance scheme and that there was no genuine loss, so the tax is payable. Although the structure was unique, the principles ruled on by the tribunal could be directly applied to a number of other cases involving further tax of about £2m, HMRC said. The Exchequer Secretary to ...
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