Thousands are being targeted by harsh HMRC tax-collecting scheme linked to 10 suicides
Four years ago, Michael Squires received a letter that turned his life upside down.
A brown envelope containing a tax demand for £24,000 landed on his doormat.
It came out of nowhere and gave Mr Squires sleepless nights as he worried about where he would find the money.
“It’s a horrible anxious feeling, I knew that I had taken due diligence and I knew that I had done what I thought was right,” he said.
“So, you feel the system is against you, you feel like you can’t fight back. In a way, you know that you’ve been conned, and you feel stupid… and I felt that for quite some time.”
Mr Squires, a healthcare worker from Leicestershire, is not alone.
‘Unjust campaign is targeting wrong people’
Tens of thousands of people across the country are facing crippling tax demands from HMRC in a harsh campaign that has been linked to 10 suicides.
HMRC has been ruthlessly pursuing people with the “loan charge” which came into force in 2017 through a piece of legislation that targeted those who were paid their salaries through loan schemes. It made individuals liable for tax that their employers should have paid.
Tax lawyers described it as an unjust campaign that is targeting the wrong people and undermining the rule of law by overriding statutory taxpayer rights.
HMRC has been targeting workers who had their salaries paid into umbrella companies, which would pay individuals a loan that was typically not paid back. Many of those who signed up, including nurses, supply teachers and council workers, had little or no choice but to take on work through these schemes.
They were directed to the schemes by their work agencies, reassured that their tax and national insurance was being taken care of and that the schemes were HMRC compliant.
In many cases, they were mis-sold.
Tens of thousands in fear of bankruptcy
For years HMRC failed to act against these schemes, which resulted in widespread underpayment of income tax and national insurance. The courts have since ruled that the employers or agencies should have been paying tax to the exchequer. However, the loan charge legislation allowed HMRC to pursue individuals in lieu of the agencies or employers.
Five years ago HMRC started sending letters to individuals, explaining that these schemes were “disguised remuneration schemes”, imposing a tax liability on what it now classified as income and applying interest – then urging them to settle.
In some cases, the bills ran into the hundreds of thousands of pounds. Those who could or would not pay were warned that they would be hit with a loan charge, typically a much larger amount because the total sum was taxed in a single year, often applying a 45% tax rate on the income. It meant that in many cases people were paying back far more than they would have done if they weren’t part of the schemes.
HMRC threatened to take people’s possessions and sell them at auction if they didn’t find the money.
In some cases, the agency set up payment plans, but in others, people had little choice but to take out further loans.
Tens of thousands of people are still living in fear of bankruptcy, and they could be forced to hand over cash if and when they sell their homes.
The consequences have been devastating.
Warning of further suicides
Sky News has spoken to families whose lives have been torn apart. One woman told us that her marriage was breaking down, while others described dangerous mental health spirals.
HMRC has admitted that there have been 10 suicides linked to the loan charge.
It has referred cases of suicide to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which oversees certain serious complaints about the conduct of tax inspectors.
Campaigners have repeatedly warned of the risk of further suicides and have demanded that HMRC provide a 24-hour suicide prevention helpline.
Mr Squires said: “We are being pursued by a very big organisation who hasn’t warned us. I received a warning letter four years later that I may have been employed by a company involved in a scheme that wasn’t legitimate.
“So, we’ve had no warning. HMRC is not out of pocket. The umbrella companies aren’t out of pocket.
“The agencies that pushed it aren’t out of pocket. It’s only the end worker and we’re just normal people.”
Michael Squires says he felt like the system was against him
HMRC targeting individuals rather than scheme organisers
While some of those who engaged in loan schemes entered into them with the explicit intent to minimise their tax bills, a large number were simply trying to do the right thing.
In many cases individuals were advised by their work agencies to sign up to the umbrella companies to streamline their tax affairs, helping them to avoid the complicated process of setting up a limited company.
Others turned to the umbrella companies because they were worried about falling foul of new IR35 rules that apply to contractors operating as limited companies.
The NHS, local authorities and other public sector organisations all engaged workers who were part of these schemes.
Back in 2021 HMRC even admitted that it had at least 15 contractors on its own books who were part of “disguised remuneration schemes” between 2016 and 2020.
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Keith Gordon, a tax barrister, said: “When the contractors were paid, the PAYE rules applied and were meant to ensure the tax was deducted from the salary before it was received by the workers.
“That PAYE was not paid. The workers suffered a deduction but that was just simply taken as fees by the promoters of the schemes which were running rather dubious tax avoidance of agents without contractors’ knowledge.”
He suggested that HMRC were targeting individuals instead of the organisers of the schemes because it was an easier way of recouping the money.
Mr Gordon continued: “Number one: The promoters have deeper pockets and might be able to fight back against unfair legislation.
“Number two: That would probably amount to admitting the revenue made a mistake in the first place.
“Number three: Some of these promoters are now insolvent because they’ve had plenty of years to wind up their affairs and become out of the reach of the tax authorities.”
Keith Gordon said HMRC is targeting individuals because it is easier
Loan charge has ‘no legal basis’
MPs and tax lawyers are calling for HMRC to rescind the policy – arguing that it amounts to a retrospective charge that overrides taxpayers’ statutory protections by effectively dismissing time limits on HMRC’s right to investigate tax affairs and by blocking individuals’ rights to fight their case in court.
It is also without any legal precedent.
The courts have repeatedly rejected HMRC’s interpretation that income tax can be applied on loans to individuals.
A 2017 Supreme Court ruling put the onus on the employer to deduct income tax before loans were advanced to an individual.
A 2019 parliamentary report concluded that “the loan charge is in defiance of the rulings of the court… no court case has given the legal basis for the loan charge”.
MPs are preparing to debate the loan charge in parliament today, where they will hear that tens of thousands of people were the victims of widespread mis-selling.
They will question why HMRC is not putting more energy into targeting the promoters and companies responsible for these schemes.
These companies made their money by charging individuals a fee to run the loan schemes. It meant that in many cases people had similar deductions to what they would have had if they were under PAYE.
David Davis, Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden, said: “The loan charge has been, frankly, a government-sponsored disaster for a very large number of people, ordinary decent people, nurses and other ordinary people who were faced with a work contract that denied them any employment rights, told them they had to accept and that was the basis on which they got the job.”
He added that HMRC should “go back to the promoters, go back to the contractors who insisted on these terms and say, ‘you can pay at least your share, if not the whole bill’, but they’re not doing that. And I’m afraid in my view, they’ve made a massive ethical error in not doing so”.
An HMRC spokesperson said: “The loan charge seeks to recover tax that has been avoided by disguising income as loans. It is our responsibility to collect the tax that people owe.
“We take the wellbeing of all taxpayers very seriously and recognise that dealing with large tax liabilities can lead to pressure on individuals.
“The support we have in place to help people settle their previous tax avoidance includes offering payment by instalments: these arrangements are based on what the taxpayer can afford, and there’s no upper limit over how long we can spread payments.
“Our message to anyone who is worried about paying what they owe is: please contact us as soon as possible to talk about options.
“Above all we want to prevent people getting into these types of situations and our message is clear – if a tax scheme sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Business
‘Absolutely gutted’: £16,500 Glastonbury packages won’t be fulfilled after company goes bust
Glastonbury ticket holders have been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after a luxury glamping company went bust.
Festival-goers who booked their tickets and accommodation with Yurtel have been told the company can no longer fulfil its orders and has ceased trading with immediate effect.
Money: Read all the latest news here
Some had spent more than £16,500 through Yurtel, with hospitality packages starting at £10,000.
In an email, Yurtel said it was unable to provide customers with any refunds, advising them to go through a third party to claim back the money once the liquidation process had started.
To add insult to injury, customers found out that Yurtel had failed to purchase the tickets for the 25 -29 June festival that they thought had been booked as part of their packages.
In a letter to customers, Yurtel’s founder Mickey Luke said: “I am deeply sorry that you have received this devastating news and am writing to apologise.
“Yurtel is a hospitality business who pride themselves on looking after our customers, delivering a unique product and striving to create a better client experience year on year. Due to a culmination of factors over the past years, we have failed to be able to continue to do so and are heartbroken.”
The Money blog has contacted Yurtel to see if the business has anything to add.
Several people have also reported that they were unable to pay by credit card at the time of booking, with the company instead asking for a bank transfer.
This means they are unable to use chargeback to get a refund. You can read more about that here…
Pic: PA
‘I feel really ripped off’
One of those customers was Lydia, who told Money she was “absolutely gutted” after spending thousands.
This year’s festival was “really important” to her as she was forced to miss out last year despite having tickets due to a health issue that left her needing an operation.
“We tried to get Glastonbury tickets through the normal kind of route and couldn’t get them,” the accountant said.
She ended up booking with Yurtel in November, sending over all the funds a month later.
“It’s super expensive. It was really, really important to us. Last year was gutting with the surgery and the whole situation around that was very traumatic, so it was a very special thing to then get the opportunity to go this year. It’s really gutting,” she said.
“I feel really ripped off and I’m really disappointed in the festival, to be honest. I think that response is just pretty rubbish.”
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Yurtel did not pay for festival tickets, Glastonbury says
Glastonbury said Yurtel was one of a small number of campsites local to the festival site – Worthy Farm – with limited access to purchase hospitality tickets for their guests in certain circumstances.
But, it had not paid for any tickets for the 2025 festival before going into liquidation, and so no tickets were secured for its guests, it added. Every year, Glastonbury’s website says that ticketing firm See Tickets is the only official source for buying tickets for the festival.
“As such we have no records of their bookings and are unable to take any responsibility for the services and the facilities they offer,” the festival said.
“Anyone who has paid Yurtel for a package including Glastonbury 2025 tickets will need to pursue any potential recompense available from them via the liquidation process as outlined in their communication to you.
“We are not able to incur the cost or responsibility of their loss or replacement.”
Instead, the festival has urged Yurtel customers to contact Yurtel@btguk.com to confirm their consent for personal data and details of their party to be shared with Glastonbury.
“We will then be able to provide details of alternative potential sources for those customers to purchase tickets and accommodation for this year’s festival,” the festival added.
‘Only option’ on offer is ‘pretty weak’
Lydia said she agreed for her details to be passed on to Glastonbury, and the festival has told her the only option is to pay for the tickets again from another provider.
“They are not giving us the opportunity to buy the tickets at face value. We would then have to go again and spend another stupidly unreasonable amount of money to be able to go. It’s pretty disappointing,” she added.
“It’s pretty weak that the only option they’re giving people who’ve already lost out on huge amounts of money is to go and spend huge amounts more money.”
It’s left her feeling like she won’t go to the festival this year – and she’s not hopeful about getting her money back.
She said: “To be honest, I just don’t think I can afford it.
“It’s already so much money wasted, and I’m not at all optimistic we’ll get anything back.”
Business
Federal judges rule Trump tariffs can stay in place for now – as president rages at trade court’s ‘country threatening decision’
A federal appeals court has ruled that Donald Trump’s sweeping international tariffs can remain in place for now, a day after three judges ruled the president exceeded his authority.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) has allowed the president to temporarily continue collecting tariffs under emergency legislation while it considers the government’s appeal.
It comes after the Court of International Trade blocked the additional taxes on foreign-made goods after its three-judge panel ruled that the Constitution gives Congress the power to levy taxes and tariffs – not the president.
The judges also ruled Mr Trump exceeded his authority by invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The CAFC said the lower trade court and the Trump administration must respond by 5 June and 9 June, respectively.
Trump calls trade court ‘backroom hustlers’
Posting on Truth Social, Mr Trump said the trade court’s ruling was a “horrible, Country threatening decision,” and said he hopes the Supreme Court would reverse it “QUICKLY and DECISIVELY”.
After calling into question the appointment of the three judges, and suggesting the ruling was based on “purely a hatred of ‘TRUMP’,” he added: “Backroom ‘hustlers’ must not be allowed to destroy our Nation!
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“The horrific decision stated that I would have to get the approval of Congress for these Tariffs. In other words, hundreds of politicians would sit around D.C. for weeks, and even months, trying to come to a conclusion as to what to charge other Countries that are treating us unfairly.
“If allowed to stand, this would completely destroy Presidential Power — The Presidency would never be the same!”
The US president unveiled the controversial measures on “Liberation Day” in April, which included a 10% tariff on UK imports and caused aggressive sell-offs in the stock market.
Mr Trump argued he invoked the decades-old law to collect international tariffs because it was a “national emergency”.
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From April: ‘This is Liberation Day’
Tariffs ‘direct threat’ to business – Schwab
The trade court ruling marked the latest legal challenge to the tariffs, and related to a case brought on behalf of five small businesses that import goods from other countries.
Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel for the Liberty Justice Center – a nonprofit representing the five firms – said the appeal court would ultimately agree that the tariffs posed “a direct threat to the very survival of these businesses”.
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US treasury secretary Scott Bessent also told Fox News on Thursday that the initial ruling had not interfered with trade deal negotiations with partners.
He said that countries “are coming to us in good faith” and “we’ve seen no change in their attitude in the past 48 hours,” before saying he would meet with a Japanese delegation in Washington on Friday.
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