Major UK recruiters linked to tax avoidance schemes after workers hit with crippling HMRC demands
Hays, Capita, Petrofac. These are some of Britain’s best known companies and big players in the recruitment industry.
Now, a Sky News investigation has revealed how, over the course of two decades, some of Britain’s biggest recruitment companies were linked to large-scale tax avoidance when placing workers into jobs, including government roles in Whitehall.
Many of these workers, typically agency workers and contractors, were paid by third-party umbrella companies that promised to take care of taxes but were operating tax avoidance schemes.
They worked by paying workers what were technically loans, instead of a salary. This allowed them to circumvent paying income tax.
Often the umbrellas were recommended by recruiters, although there is no suggestion the recruiters knew these third-parties were operating tax avoidance schemes.
It is the latest revelation in a scandal that has caused untold misery for tens of thousands of people, who signed up with umbrella companies and were enrolled in tax avoidance schemes, thinking they were above board.
Many feel let down by the recruitment agencies who provided information linking them to the umbrella companies. They were not legally responsible for collecting the tax, as they did not run the payroll.
But the government is now strengthening the law to make them accountable for the tax collected by umbrella agencies on behalf of the workers they supply.
Tax avoidance is legal but HMRC has successfully challenged tax avoidance schemes in the courts and workers have subsequently asked to pay the missing tax.
In some cases, the tax demands have been crippling. It’s a campaign that has driven people to the brink of bankruptcy, devastated families and has been linked to 10 suicides.
Manuel’s story
Manuel Bernal did not doubt his working arrangement after taking on a piping supervisor job through Atlantic Resourcing, the recruitment arm of the energy giant Petrofac. In 2006, he was placed on an EDF plant in the Shetlands.
He received a contract between Atlantic Resourcing and an umbrella company, which managed his pay.
Weeks after he started working, he says he was pushed into an arrangement with a different company, which took over the payments. Hundreds of people were working on the site and “everybody on the management side was on that scheme”, he said.
Mr Bernal was assured that everything was above board. He did not know that he was in a tax avoidance scheme.
Manuel Bernal was not aware he was exposed to a tax avoidance scheme
The company was paying him a loan instead of a salary, via a trust, so avoided income tax and National Insurance.
However, HMRC soon caught on and demanded he pay the missing tax for what it now deemed disguised remuneration.
“At the time, I was in two minds [whether] to pay or not to pay… At the time I couldn’t pay. I was short of money because I had cancer and I couldn’t work… I thought, ‘why should they not pay any money?'” said Mr Bernal.
Tax avoidance is the exploitation of legal loopholes to pay less tax. It is legal. It is not the same as tax evasion, which involves not paying or underpaying taxes and is illegal.
The scheme Mr Bernal was in, like other tax avoidance schemes, stretched the boundaries of the law.
Years later, HMRC successfully challenged the lawfulness of loan schemes in the courts. Workers paid the price. Irrespective of how they entered the schemes, they were deemed responsible for their own tax affairs.
In a statement, Petrofac said: “Like any other company, we are not involved in, or responsible for, the administration of taxes for self-employed limited company contractors.”
The company stopped using umbrella agencies in 2016 after an internal review.
Six-figure demands
Manuel got off comparatively lightly. Having only worked at the site for a few months, his bill came in at £4,000, but others are facing six-figure demands. HMRC has pursued around 50,000 people.
Schemes like these proliferated from the early 2000s.
At the time the use of umbrella companies was becoming popular as workers were worried about falling foul of new rules – originally designed by Gordon Brown – that clamped down on contractors operating as limited companies.
HMRC has pursued around 50,000 people for missing tax
Umbrella companies would manage the payroll so that businesses could avoid bringing workers onto their direct payroll. Others asked workers, like Manuel, to declare as self-employed, while continuing to distribute their pay.
Many umbrellas paid PAYE to the exchequer, but tax avoidance companies also entered the market.
Workers assumed their tax was being paid, but the schemes were pocketing deductions instead of passing them on to the exchequer.
The Treasury became alert to the scale of the missing tax revenue and sought to recoup it – not from the companies but from the individuals.
People have protested about the loan charge outside parliament. Pic: PA
These schemes were deemed disguised remuneration and, in his 2016 budget, former chancellor George Osborne brought in the loan charge.
In its original form, the loan charge calculated the tax on up to 20 years of income as if it was earned in one financial year – 2018/19. The resulting sums caused considerable financial distress.
Mr Bernal said: “(HMRC) kept sending letters when I was in hospital and my wife had to deal with it. Eventually, I sent in a doctor’s report and they stopped.”
‘I trusted them’
Loan schemes became enmeshed in the recruitment supply chain.
Many recruiters were not aware the umbrella companies they were working with were tax avoidance schemes. However, the strength of their recommendations often gave workers confidence.
John (not his real name), an IT worker, felt he was in safe hands when he used an umbrella company that was on an approved list given to him by the recruiter Hays in 2010.
Hays is one of the best known recruitment agencies in the UK. Pic: PA
“I thought Hays is one of the biggest recruitment companies in the country,” he said. “They’re saying they are okay, so I started using them.”
Hays said it “engages only with umbrella companies that appropriately meet legal and financial obligations… We conduct thorough due diligence… we recommend (contractors) also do their due diligence”.
HMRC has previously warned recruitment agencies they face penalties if they refer people to non-compliant umbrella companies but it has not confirmed whether fines have ever been levied.
Meanwhile, new tax avoidance promoters continue to enter the market.
A recent government report concluded there could be “70 to 80 non-compliant umbrella companies involved in the operation of disguised remuneration avoidance schemes”.
Crackdown
The government is now attempting to clean up the industry. It plans to hold recruitment companies legally responsible for PAYE, rather than umbrella companies.
Sky News understands that the Treasury will today unveil a package of reforms it will consult on as part of a crackdown on tax avoidance schemes.
However, this offers little respite to those who have already fallen victim to these schemes.
While in opposition, key Labour Party figures railed against what they described as mis-selling and promised they would review the policy.
The government has now launched an independent review into the loan charge – and HMRC is pausing its activity until that review is complete – but its focus is on helping people to reach a settlement. The review will not look at the historical role of promoters and recruitment agencies.
That is a bitter pill to swallow for those affected by the loan charge, particularly as many of them were working for the government itself.
‘I sent them a suicide note’
Peter (not his real name) worked at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills as a project manager for the regional growth fund, a role he was recruited into in 2012 by the agency Capita.
He said Capita recommended he use an umbrella arrangement, which he was told was above board.
“I’m really angry. [Capita] gave me confidence. They are the key agency for central government work… If Capita say something to you then you believe it’s correct. You have to trust what you’re told.”
Capita said: “We have strict policies in place to ensure both Capita and our suppliers comply with relevant law, policies and procedures. Given this was over 12 years ago, we do not have the details to be able to comment on this particular matter.”
Sky News has spoken to other Whitehall workers who have also been affected.
Capita says it has strict policies to ensure the company and suppliers comply with the law. Pic: PA
Read more:
Thousands targeted by tax-collecting scheme linked to suicides
HMRC accused of ‘sinister’ tactics in crackdown
After the loan charge came into force, Peter was inundated with letters from HMRC. It became overwhelming and in 2019 he tried to take his own life.
“I sent them [HMRC] a suicide note because I was just fed up with all of this,” he said. “I’ve been on anti-depressants. I live in denial. I drink alcohol sometimes quite a bit.”
HMRC said it takes the wellbeing of taxpayers seriously and believes it has made significant improvements to its support services in recent years.
The government department Peter worked for has since been fashioned into the Department for Business and Trade.
It said it was unable to comment on the previous department’s arrangements with Capita but said the government was cracking down on non-compliant umbrella companies.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
Piers Morgan, the broadcaster and journalist, is raising tens of millions of dollars of funding from heavyweight investors as he seeks to turn Uncensored, his YouTube-based venture, into a broad-based global media business.
Sky News can exclusively reveal that Mr Morgan is in the process of finalising a roughly $30m (£22.5m) fundraising for Uncensored that will give it a pre-money valuation of about $130m (£97m).
The new investors are understood to include The Raine Group, the New York-based merchant bank, and Theo Kyriakou, the media mogul behind Greece’s Antenna Group, owner of a stake in London-based digital venture The News Movement.
Michael Kassan, a marketing veteran, is understood to be advising the business on advertising-related matters and may also invest in a personal capacity, according to insiders.
A number of family offices from around the world are also said to be in talks to become shareholders in Uncensored.
Joe Ravitch, the prominent American banker and Raine co-founder who has advised in recent years on the sale of Chelsea and Manchester United football clubs, is said to be joining the Uncensored board as part of the capital-raising.
The move comes nearly a year after Mr Morgan announced his departure from Rupert Murdoch’s British empire through a deal which handed him full control and ownership of his Uncensored YouTube channel.
Allies of Mr Morgan said this weekend that some details of the fundraising were likely to be confirmed publicly in the coming days.
While the size of his personal stake in the business was unclear this weekend, insiders said the crystallisation of a $130m valuation would mean that Mr Morgan’s economic interest was, on paper, worth tens of millions of pounds.
“The ambition is to grow this into a billion dollar company within a few years,” said one person close to the discussions with investors.
“With the scale of audiences now being driven to digital channels and the commercial opportunities there, that is definitely achievable.”
The former Mirror editor, whose career has also encompassed stints at ITV, with CNN in the US and Mr Murdoch’s global media conglomerates News Corporation and Fox, is now drawing up plans to transform Uncensored into a more diverse digital media group.
This is expected to include the launch of a series of ‘verticals’ attached to the Uncensored brand, including channels dedicated to subjects such as history, sport and technology.
Mr Morgan is already said to be in talks with prominent figures to spearhead some of these new strands, with a chief executive also expected to be recruited to drive the growth of the overall Uncensored business.
His appetite to establish a YouTube-based global media network has been driven by the scale of the global audiences he has drawn to some of his recent work, including interviews with the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and the former world tennis number one Novak Djokovic.
Piers Morgan interviewed Ronaldo. Pic: Reuters
Both of those athletes have collaborated with Mr Morgan by posting parts of their exchanges on social media platforms, attracting hundreds of millions of views.
Mr Morgan’s access to President Donald Trump, whom he has interviewed on several occasions, is also likely to be a factor in the timing of Uncensored’s expansion strategy.
While many ‘legacy’ news and media networks remain hamstrung by inflated cost bases, Mr Morgan’s decision to go it alone and focus on developing the Uncensored brand reflects his belief that the news and media industries are ripe for disintermediation by channels tied to prominent, and sometimes controversial, individual journalists and presenters.
The Piers Morgan Uncensored YouTube channel has 4.3 million subscribers, roughly half of whom are from the US.
Of the remaining 50%, however, only a minority are British, with a significant number based in the Middle East, South Africa and parts of Asia.
Novak Djokovic at Flushing Meadows. Pic: AP
This has fuelled Mr Morgan’s view that there is journalistic and commercial mileage in creating content on issues which historically might have struggled to generate a significant international audience – such as ongoing military and political tension between India and Pakistan, and the white farmer ‘genocide’ furore in South Africa.
Under the deal he struck with Mr Murdoch in January this year, Mr Morgan has a four-year revenue-sharing agreement that involves News UK receiving a slice of the advertising revenue generated by Piers Morgan Uncensored until 2029.
Mr Morgan had returned to Mr Murdoch’s media empire in January 2022 with a three-year agreement that included writing regular columns for The Sun and New York Post, as well as presenting shows on the company’s now-folded television channel, Talk TV.
He also recently released a book, Woke Is Dead, which was published by Mr Murdoch’s books subsidiary, Harper Collins.
As part of his new arrangements, Mr Morgan also signed a deal with Red Seat Ventures, a US-based agency which partners with prominent media figures and influencers to help them exploit commercial opportunities through sponsorship and other revenue streams.
Among those Red Seat has worked with are Megyn Kelly, the American commentator, and Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News presenter.
While many well-known American news media figures are followed because of their partisanship and affiliations to either the political left or right, Mr Morgan has positioned himself as a ‘ringmaster’ who is not ideologically hidebound.
His plans come at a time of continuing upheaval in the global media industry, with Netflix agreeing a landmark $83bn deal this week to buy the Hollywood studio Warner Bros.
In the UK, Sky, the Comcast-owned immediate parent company of Sky News, is in talks to acquire ITV’s broadcasting business, while the Daily Telegraph newspaper could soon find itself as a stablemate of the Daily Mail if a proposed £500m deal is successful.
Meanwhile, Reach, the London-listed newspaper publisher which owns the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror, now has a market valuation of just £176m – less than double that of Mr Morgan’s new standalone digital media company.
When Sky News revealed Mr Morgan’s move to separate from News UK earlier this year, he said: “Owning the [Uncensored] brand allows my team and I the freedom to focus exclusively on building Uncensored into a standalone business, editorially and commercially, and in time, widening it from just me and my content.
“It’s clear from the… US election that YouTube is an increasingly powerful and influential media platform, and Uncensored is one of the fastest-growing shows on it in the world.
“I’m very excited about the potential for Uncensored.”
This weekend, he added: “I am very excited that some of the most experienced and successful players in the global media industry, like Joe, Michael and Theo, share my ambitious vision for Uncensored.
“This is the future of modern media.”
It’s a debate that has raged since the end of the COVID pandemic but, despite regulatory scrutiny, it’s fair to say there’s been no clear answer to accusations that UK drivers pay over the odds for fuel.
What was once a promotional loss leader for supermarkets desperate for drivers to fill their car boots with groceries, unleaded and diesel costs have been unusually high for years.
Fuel retailers say there is a simple explanation: rising costs being passed on to motorists.
But critics argue there is a reason why the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has consistently found that we’re paying more than we should be – and that the disparity between wholesale costs and pump prices has got worse in recent months.
So: who’s right?
What the oil data tells us
Oil prices are well down on levels seen in January (between $75 and $82 a barrel) but fuel prices are clearly not.
In recent weeks, Brent crude has traded in the range of $62 to $64 per barrel and yet drivers are currently, on average, paying £1.37 a litre for petrol and £1.46 for diesel.
The average pumps costs in January stood at £1.39 and £1.45 – despite the significantly higher oil costs seen at the time.
Prices can be affected by all sorts of factors including the value of the pound versus the oil-priced dollar, but that disparity is notable.
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Trump’s ambassador tells UK to drill for oil
There is another, emerging, factor to consider
It might surprise you to learn that the UK now has only four operational refineries to produce petrol and diesel after two major sites shut this year.
The decline has sparked an industry warning of a crisis due to high UK carbon charges, imposed by the government, that have made domestic fuel producers uncompetitive versus imports.
The loss of the refinery at Grangemouth this spring has been particularly acute as it left Scotland without domestic production and at the mercy of a more complicated and expensive delivery structure.
Fuel retailers say the impact has been minimal so far, mainly due to remaining UK refineries raising production.
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‘Drill baby drill’
The case for the prosecution
Quite simply, fuel price campaigners and motoring groups have long accused the industry of raising its profit margins.
Supermarkets focused price investment elsewhere as the cost of living crisis took hold but the days of Asda (before it was bought by the fuel-focused Issa brothers and private equity) leading a sector-wide fuel price war are long gone.
Reports by both the AA and RAC this week highlight price spikes despite a 5p slump in wholesale costs a fortnight ago.
The AA said: “At the height of the spike, it matched what had been seen in mid June. Then, the petrol pump average reached a maximum of 135.8p by late July.
It said that government data had since shown pump prices at levels not seen since March.
The body questioned the reasons behind that disparity and also pointed towards, what it called, a postcode lottery for pump costs with gaps of up to 9p a litre between towns only 10 miles apart.
The RAC declared on Thursday that pump prices rose at their fastest pace in 18 months during November, with diesel at a 15-month high.
The critics have also included regulators as monitoring of fuel retailers by the CMA since its original market study has consistently found that drivers have been excessively charged.
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‘It’s either keep warm or eat’
What’s the fuel industry’s position?
It pleads “not guilty”.
The bodies representing retailers make the point that the CMA and its wider critics fail to take into account huge rises in costs they have faced over the past four years – costs which are being/have been passed on across the economy.
These include those for energy, business rates, minimum wage, employer national insurance costs and record sums arising from forecourt crime.
The Petrol Retailers’ Association (PRA), which represents the majority of forecourts, told Sky News that average margins across the sector are the same today as they were a year ago at between 3% to 4% after costs.
It suggests no fuel for the fire surrounding those profiteering allegations but that rising costs have been passed on in full.
Pic: iStock
What has the regulator done?
The CMA’s road fuel market study committed to monitor the market and recommended a compulsory fuel finder scheme to help bolster competition. That was two-and-a-half years ago.
Limited data has been widely available via motoring apps ahead of the start of the official scheme, expected in spring next year, which will bring real-time pricing into a driver’s view for the first time.
The CMA hopes that by forcing each retailer to divulge their prices in real time, customers will vote with their feet.
In the regulator’s defence
The CMA could argue that government has dragged its heels in implementing its fuel finder recommendation.
While the Conservatives accepted it, Labour is now pushing it through parliament.
The regulator can only act within the powers it has been given. It would say that it can’t threaten or hand out fines until its recommendations are in play and they have been clearly flouted.
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What next for the UK economy?
So who’s right?
This is a debate all about transparency but we clearly don’t have a full view on the complicated, and shifting, supply chain which can influence pump prices.
The CMA hopes that postcode lotteries for pump costs will ease once more drivers are aware of the ability to compare and shop around.
But the main reason why this issue remains unresolved is that the CMA’s findings have been incomplete to date.
Its determinations that pump costs have been excessive have all been made without taking retailers’ operating costs into full account.
Pic: Reuters
Why we are closer to an answer
The CMA’s next market update is expected within weeks and will, for the first time, take more extensive cost data into account.
A spokesperson told Sky News: “We recommended the Fuel Finder scheme to help drivers avoid paying more than they should at the pump, and the government intends to launch it by spring 2026.
“The scheme will give drivers real-time price information, helping them find the cheapest fuel and putting pressure on retailers to compete.
“We looked closely at operating costs during our review of the market, and they formed a key part of our final report in 2023.
“As we confirmed in June, we’ve been examining claims that these costs have risen and will set out our assessment in our annual report later this month.”
The hope must be that both sides involved can accept the report’s findings for the first time, to bring this bitter debate to an end once and for all.”
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