“Gary Lineker fights HMRC over £5m IR35 bill”

May 18, 2021 | Tax

HMRC are not, in this case, targeting low-hanging fruit, but have gone to the top of the tree, as Gary is one of the Beeb’s highest paid. They’re saying he’s actually an employee, so he and the BBC owe £ms in back taxes and NI. He, and lots of other show biz folk, say they do plenty of non-BBC work and are self-employed contractors. The trouble with going for the high fruit is that they can afford to defend themselves pretty rigorously. And, as Gary says, it’s we licence payers who’ll be the biggest losers if he loses.

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“HMRC scraps plans to tax pensions after death”

“HMRC scraps plans to tax pensions after death”

A couple of other Statement Highlights (in my world, anyway). A welcome ‘nothing happened’ on the treatment of pensions on death. They were never going to be liable to IHT (too complicated with trusts and trust law) but there was talk of making them income-taxable on the recipients at whatever age you die.

“Raising IHT threshold could cost government £6bn”

“Raising IHT threshold could cost government £6bn”

Well, the lesson of this week in politics must be to expect the unexpected. Or, alternative interpretation, to expect more of the same. The speculation on the future of Inheritance Tax has switched from abolition to a rise in the amount of wealth you can have before the 40% payment hits.