Jack Monroe #283 Tax Jack, tax Jack, needs to start paying back

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Soapy Dolphin said:
Hasn't she said before that she only pays herself minimum wage? As the company director I'm sure that in itself is tax avoidance - not paying employer's and employee's NI.
The current threshold for VAT registration is a turnover of £85,000 but even if you don't earn that much it can be worth registering if you intend to buy lots of equipment and claim it back.

Not a tax expert but another tax paying, limited company director frau. Both of us are directors and employees.
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I fervently hope she hasn’t got herself into a VAT return mess as well - but given her level of earnings probably should have been registered…
 
You see, you can be funny! You should try and get a gig on the telly or sumfin, babes.

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Soapy Dolphin said:
Hasn't she said before that she only pays herself minimum wage? As the company director I'm sure that in itself is tax avoidance - not paying employer's and employee's NI.
The current threshold for VAT registration is a turnover of £85,000 but even if you don't earn that much it can be worth registering if you intend to buy lots of equipment and claim it back.

Not a tax expert but another tax paying, limited company director frau. Both of us are directors and employees.
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That’s pretty normal though - a lot of directors choose to take their tax free sum through PAYE and then the rest of their income comes from dividend (lower tax rate).
Tax avoidance isn’t technically illegal. Tax evasion is. (Before she sets her solicitor in Yemen on me, I am NOT accusing her of this)

I am a lazy Frau though and pay my entire wage through PAYE because it’s easier than trying to work out what profit we’ll make in a year.

I have no idea of her turnover but £85k a year isn’t a lot so it wouldn’t surprise me if she surpasses this and actually also owes vat. I’ve been in a mess with vat before - I quickly learned you do not mess with that department 😬
 
Brian Butterfield said:
Honestly, @Froggies I have a proper fear of being in debt/owing money. I'm a spender and if I didn't put tax away as soon as my monies came in I would be living in a constant state of panic.

We also had to work really hard to get where we are and I'm not about to duck that up.

If Jack had a decent accountant and had a solid three years of business accounts showing growth, she could absolutely have got a mortgage by now. She is paid extremely well for what she does.
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And now we know why she couldn't even apply for one.
 
Froggies said:
That’s pretty normal though - a lot of directors choose to take their tax free sum through PAYE and then the rest of their income comes from dividend (lower tax rate).
Tax avoidance isn’t technically illegal. Tax evasion is. (Before she sets her solicitor in Yemen on me, I am NOT accusing her of this)

I am a lazy Frau though and pay my entire wage through PAYE because it’s easier than trying to work out what profit we’ll make in a year.

I have no idea of her turnover but £85k a year isn’t a lot so it wouldn’t surprise me if she surpasses this and actually also owes vat. I’ve been in a mess with vat before - I quickly learned you do not mess with that department 😬
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Sorry, I mentioned this to show what a hypocrite she is. Not suggesting she's doing anything illegal. Just dissembling as usual - slagging off all and sundry while paying the absolute bare minimum.
If a large amount of your payments come via dividend then I'm sure it makes you more "interesting" to HMRC.

You are obviously a very upstanding and conscientious citizen if you pay all through PAYE. :)
 
Soapy Dolphin said:
Sorry, I mentioned this to show what a hypocrite she is. Not suggesting she's doing anything illegal. Just dissembling as usual - slagging off all and sundry while paying the absolute bare minimum.
If a large amount of your payments come via dividend then I'm sure it makes you more "interesting" to HMRC.

You are obviously a very upstanding and conscientious citizen if you pay all through PAYE. :)
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Just lazy Soapy 😂😂 I really do need to sort that out but I like having the tax paid each month by the business rather than personally having to remember to save it for January.

I know you weren’t saying she was doing anything illegal and I agree 100% with what you’re saying. She’s a gigantic hypocrite and I genuinely hope this bites her on her Mediterranean arse.
 
I am not a tax frau so I'm drawing on my advocacy and trade union experience here but if Jack's hoping simply claiming to have depression and ADHD etc will get her off the hook then I think she's horribly wrong. I've had a lot of experience using peoples health as mitigation in various situations and the key thing here is evidence and being able to explain how your condition impacted on your ability to pay. It's not enough to claim a mental health issue or disability because simply anyone could say they have these issues and no one could say one way or the other if they're telling the truth. To use myself as an example until last year I'd been on anti-depressants and was receiving counselling on and off, had I got into trouble with the tax man none of that would have been any help because I was going to work and managing my own day to day personal obligations. If on the other hand I'd had a rerun of My Personal Hell year, where I in effect just shut down and stopped functioning, then yes that's very much the sort of thing that could be looked at sympathetically, provided I could provide evidence and was taking steps to get help. Something like Jack's stint in dayhab might be useful here but it happened way later on in the saga and it's very hard to argue you were fit enough to do highly stressful media work for the best part of two years whilst also in the grip of an addiction so terrible it stopped you managing your affairs.

The purpose of charges and fines is to create an incentive not to get into trouble in the first place or if it's too late for that to push you to address the situation quickly. The only experience I've had in helping someone with a tax debt I've had was during my time with the CAB- this involved a client with a fairly obvious learning difficulty who'd been exploited by a scum of the earth business (blatant money laundering front) and put on the books as self employed. As this person completely lacked the capacity to manage money this turned out about as well as you'd expect. HMRC did write off a good deal of the debt once we got involved and sorted out what dates they'd actually been "self-employed" but in the end did expect paying for the couple of years they were working. I could see HMRC being quite sympathetic to a sole trader running a micro business who genuinely could not afford to pay an accountant and landed themselves in the tit, a top anti-poverty campaigner who does extensive behind the scenes work at the highest levels whilst also making regular lucrative media appearances and has had a range of advertising partnerships with big companies, not so much.

I dunno, maybe Jack could send the long overdue invoice for inventing the Healthy Start Vouchers scheme all those years ago and cancel out the debt.
 
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jenny2603 said:
I am not a tax frau so I'm drawing on my advocacy and trade union experience here but if Jack's hoping simply claiming to have depression and ADHD etc will get her off the hook then I think she's horribly wrong. I've had a lot of experience using peoples health as mitigation in various situations and the key thing here is evidence and being able to explain how your condition impacted on your ability to pay. It's not enough to claim a mental health issue or disability because simply anyone could say they have these issues and no one could say one way or the other if they're telling the truth. To use myself as an example until last year I'd been on anti-depressants and was receiving counselling on and off, had I got into trouble with the tax man none of that would have been any help because I was going to work and managing my own day to day personal obligations. If on the other hand I'd had a rerun of My Personal Hell year, where I in effect just shut down and stopped functioning, then yes that's very much the sort of thing that could be looked at sympathetically, provided I could provide evidence and was taking steps to get help. Something like Jack's stint in dayhab might be useful here but it happened way later on in the saga and it's very hard to argue you were fit enough to do highly stressful media work for the best part of two years whilst also in the grip of an addiction so terrible it stopped you managing your affairs.

The purpose of charges and fines is to create an incentive not to get into trouble in the first place or if it's too late for that to push you to address the situation quickly. The only experience I've had in helping someone with a tax debt I've had was during my time with the CAB- this involved a client with a fairly obvious learning difficulty who'd been exploited by a scum of the earth business (blatant money laundering front) and put on the books as self employed. As this person completely lacked the capacity to manage money this turned out about as well as you'd expect. HMRC did write off a good deal of the debt once we got involved and sorted out what dates they'd actually been "self-employed" but in the end did expect paying for the couple of years they were working. I could see HMRC being quite sympathetic to a sole trader running a micro business who genuinely could not afford to pay an accountant and landed themselves in the tit, a top anti-poverty campaigner who does extensive behind the scenes work at the highest levels whilst also making regular lucrative media appearances and has had a range of advertising partnerships with big companies, not so much.

I dunno, maybe could send the long overdue invoice for inventing the Healthy Start Vouchers scheme all those years ago and cancel out the debt.
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Surely if she had/has an accountant that makes it all nonsense anyway as they'd have done everything? Unless there are massive gaps in receipts etc. Basic PAYE frau here. Although I've had experience trying to dismiss someone who all of a sudden developed previously undisclosed health conditions which apparently made hitting deadlines, working on a Monday and answering phonecalls/emails/slack messages asking for updates impossible... No dice
 
Messing with any type of tax is downright stupid. Essex Girl did say she thought tax would be the end of the Monroe Show.
My long held opinion (just that, my opinion) is the limited company was set up to be a vehicle towards credit ratings & a mortgage.
The bungalow was referred to as the penultimate forever home. So rented in 2019? After 2 years, that should have been ok for a joint mortgage. The breakup could well have been part money arguments over unpaid tax / lack of saving. The pandemic probably just sped up the process.

I'll be honest, I tit myself if I see on the news one of those stories "15000 people are getting letters this morning over incorrect tax calculations". And I've had PAYE jobs since I was 17.

Tax avoidance schemes are rife. Some are just more acceptable than others. I have an ISA and pay into a workplace pension, so technically I'm in 2 such schemes. They are legal and I bet the majority of the population wouldn't consider me a tax dodger for this. The lines are blurry - but avoidance schemes are just that, they aren't illegal. If you paid the max ISA limit since they were created, with no interest it would be over £250k....
 
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