HMRC Loan Charge webinar fails to sway the majority

The majority of contractors who participated in a webinar that HMRC put on about the 2019 Loan Charge say it failed to change their intentions about settling.

Further raising a question mark over the effectiveness of the webinar, a reported 33 per cent of the contractors said the online event did not improve their understanding of the charge.

But HMRC is still likely to be relatively content because, despite attracting a total of just 270 participants, out of the 70 per cent whose intentions are unchanged, 51 per cent are settlors.

Even more reassuring for the Treasury, out of those webinar participants whose intentions have changed, 22 per cent say they are now more likely to settle with HMRC over the charge.

By contrast, eight per cent are now put off from settling as a direct result of the HMRC-led webinar, held before a Lords committee said the loan charge must be reviewed and amended.

The figures coincide with the Loan Charge Action Group disassociating itself from “various new schemes” which claim contractors who use them can avoid having to pay the charge.

In an online update, the lobby group said: “Please note that LCAG are not affiliated with any tax planning solution and have not been involved in their design or their marketing.”