A struck-off solicitor is the first individual to be ordered to stop promoting tax avoidance schemes under threat of criminal prosecution. HM Revenue & Customs said yesterday that it had issued two stop notices to Paul Baxendale-Walker under Promoters of Tax Avoidance Schemes (POTAS) legislation.
This is the first time that such notices have been issued to an individual rather than to a company promoting a tax avoidance scheme.
The notices cover schemes involving ‘artificial arrangements, including the use of offshore trusts, designed to claim tax deductions without genuine business purpose’, HMRC said. ‘The schemes create complex structures to ensure money remains available to the users while claiming to avoid the tax due.’
Baxendale-Walker was admitted to the roll in 1990, suspended in 2005 and struck off in 2007.
In 2016, he was fined after pleading guilty to impersonating an HMRC official to attempt to obtain information from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
In a lengthy social media post this morning under the name 'Paul Chaplin', Baxendale-Walker said HMRC had published false information. 'The act of publication was unlawful and ultra vires and any purported Stop Notice is void.' He concluded by advising readers to 'get ready practising Nazi salutes, for each time an HMRC Officer rides by in his staff car: paid for by you.'
