Stamp duty - legal loophole?

[Adam B]

Anyone confirm or deny this?

Only have scant overview but goes something along the lines of:

Buy property
Stick pin in Brown voodoo doll.
Pay all stamp duty due, to your lawyers bank account.
Your lawyer pays a small %age of stamp duty due, say 25%, and keeps the other 75% in his bank account.
Cross fingers and rely on usual tax office inefficiency.
If after 8 months, they have not claimed the balance he gives 75% back to you.
Can no longer be claimed by Brown.
Apparently requires lawyers on both purchase/sale side to agree to do this but nothing illegal.

Can anyone confirm its total bks or is plausible?

[rude-boy]

You find me the solicitor who is willing to do that and i'll gladly report them for you.

[audidoody]

Yeah .... right

[rude-boy]

BTW IIRC they an go back 6 years, not just 6 months.

[rich1231]

Adam B said:

Anyone confirm or deny this?

Only have scant overview but goes something along the lines of:

Buy property
Stick pin in Brown voodoo doll.
Pay all stamp duty due, to your lawyers bank account.
Your lawyer pays a small %age of stamp duty due, say 25%, and keeps the other 75% in his bank account.
Cross fingers and rely on usual tax office inefficiency.
If after 8 months, they have not claimed the balance he gives 75% back to you.
Can no longer be claimed by Brown.
Apparently requires lawyers on both purchase/sale side to agree to do this but nothing illegal.

Can anyone confirm its total bks or is plausible?

Ohh look

stupid post of the day

[Vesuvius 996]

Good luck in prison.

[scotal]

Adam, Adam, Adam, your profile says you're an accountant..... you really think soemthing this stupid is going to work?

Edited by scotal on Wednesday 6th August 16:56

[martnewts]

There are arrangements whereby stamp duty can be avoided. However the costs of the schemes mean that it is normally only viable for residential purchases in excess of £1 million.

I understand that Tesco has not paid any stamp duty on any of its land purchases in recent years but I am sure they use a more complicated arrangement than the one you describe!!

[ThunderSpook]

I think we've just figured out who Clarkson keeps talking about

[Adam B]

rich1231 said:

Ohh look

stupid post of the day

A simple "that is bks" and reason why would have sufficed. As stated the person telling me had few details, it was regarding a company offering welath management services so maybe it applies to RNDs only etc etc

Thanks soovy - not about to do it, just wondered if there were circumstances where it could work.

[Adam B]

martnewts said:

There are arrangements whereby stamp duty can be avoided. However the costs of the schemes mean that it is normally only viable for residential purchases in excess of £1 million.

Yes he did mention is was on high end stuff. Can you explain roughly how it works, whilst the urine-takers watch

Accountant not a tax expert.

[marsred]

I would have said you best first question would have been, "any PHers work for HMRC?"

unless its HMT who collect it, i can't remember. i was posting for humour not for educational or accuracy reasons

[martnewts]

I cant explain the exact workings as I understand they are only released to participants once they are fairly committed to the scheme and have signed confidentiality agreements as the providers dont want the method in the public domain to avoid others copying the method and also to avoid HMRC stopping them.

[Adam B]

marsred said:

I would have said you best first question would have been, "any PHers work for HMRC?"

true although then no one would have read it, thus missing a valuable opportunity of calling me a cock, despite they appearing to be some truth in it

don't often start threads in P&P and now I know why - still, London what a sthole eh?

Edited by Adam B on Wednesday 6th August 17:18

[Mikeyboy]

Oh i think what you have hit on there is erm Tax Fraud. go straight to gaol do not pass go etc.

[Davey S2]

Despite being a Govt Dept I have never come across Revenue & Customs issuing an SDLT Certificate without having had the full amount of SDLT duty.

Besides which if your purchase is with the aid of a mortgage your solicitor will have given an undertaking to the lender to attend to all post completion matters including paying any required SDLT.

[Adam B]

martnewts said:

I cant explain the exact workings as I understand they are only released to participants once they are fairly committed to the scheme and have signed confidentiality agreements as the providers dont want the method in the public domain to avoid others copying the method and also to avoid HMRC stopping them.

makes sense and tallies with some of the other things he said, many thanks mate for disproving the kneejerk doubters

will make some further enquiries but not here clearly, and not with Inland Revenue, hey marsred?

Edited by Adam B on Wednesday 6th August 17:18

[Chrispy Porker]

Can't you pay £1 for the house and £499,999 for the curtains and carpets?

[scotal]

Adam B said:

martnewts said:

I cant explain the exact workings as I understand they are only released to participants once they are fairly committed to the scheme and have signed confidentiality agreements as the providers dont want the method in the public domain to avoid others copying the method and also to avoid HMRC stopping them.

makes sense and tallies with some of the other things he said, many thanks mate for disproving the kneejerk doubters

will make some further enquiries but not here clearly, and not with Inland Revenue aye marsred?

I'm betting you will find it involves terms like "substantial performance of the contract", probably with an 85%-15% split on the purchase monies being transferred across, and the second half of the money being just low enough to be below SDLT thresholds. The fee for doing this would usually be 1/2 the money saved in SDLT, so 2% of purchase price.

[Davey S2]

Adam B said:

martnewts said:

There are arrangements whereby stamp duty can be avoided. However the costs of the schemes mean that it is normally only viable for residential purchases in excess of £1 million.

Yes he did mention is was on high end stuff. Can you explain roughly how it works, whilst the urine-takers watch

Accountant not a tax expert.

£1M? and the rest. We generally only se these schemes on deals worth at least £50M.

They are massively complicated, time consuming and expensive. Just not worth it for 99.99% of residential schemes