Loan charge: ‘Unbearable’ distress of victims must anger us all: Greg Wright

I've got his permission to share the contents of this message, which moved me deeply. The man, who says he has had to pay HMRC around £250,000 due to the loan charge, described the unbearable stress he wakes up to every day.

"I have lost my family, I am divorced because of the money pressure and I am in enormous debt that I am struggling to service,’’ he said.

“I will have to sell my house and as I am close to retirement I do not know what my future looks like,’’ he added.

“All this has happened because I was introduced to a scheme via my accountant that I was told was completely legal and had been checked by the appropriate tax experts just to avoid being caught up in the proposed, at that time, IR35 legislation (off-payroll working rules which aim to make sure that a contractor pays broadly the same Income Tax and National Insurance as an employee).

The man added: "It is my hope that with support such as yours there will be some justice akin to that of the Post Office Horizon scandal.”

"This legislation is not fair. It has cost the lives of some people and caused so much distress for so many.”

The Loan Charge and Taxpayer Fairness All Party Parliamentary Group, (APPG) which is pushing for a resolution to the scandal, continues to grow.

Tom Gordon, the Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, has become its 138th member, joining Parliamentarians from across the political divide who are horrified by the impact of the loan charge. The Loan Charge, first announced by the Conservative Government in 2016, was designed to tackle historical use of contrived tax avoidance schemes that seek to avoid charges of income tax and National Insurance by disguising remuneration as a form of non-taxable payment, typically in the form of a loan.

The Government has commissioned Ray McCann, former President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, to lead a new independent review into the loan charge, after MPs denounced the policy as flawed and punitive. Although the review is not on the scale proposed by the APPG last year, the Government has stressed that Mr McCann will have the final say on what is included in his report. The Government is also carrying out consultation on a package of measures to tackle promoters of marketed tax avoidance.

The evidence I received this week shows the Labour Government was absolutely right to hold a new review into the loan charge, which must be shaped by evidence from people whose lives have been thrown into chaos by this deeply flawed policy. Everyone must wish Mr McCann well as he attempts to bring this tragic saga to a fair and lasting settlement. The Government must then turn its fire on the advisers and promoters who are at the heart of this scandal. They are living the high life while their victims face ruin; a fact which should fill us all with a burning sense of injustice.

Greg Wright is the deputy business editor of The Yorkshire Post