Firm loses £100m offshore tax avoidance bid

A tax avoidance scheme sold by serial avoidance promoter NT Advisors has lost its third bid for legitimacy, saving the country £100m, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has said.

Matthew Jenner devised the complex scheme, branded Project Corbiere, for advisory firm and consultancy NT Advisors and pitched it to the wealthy. It involved transferring millions of pounds of UK government bonds backwards and forwards to the British Virgin Islands to manufacture an unwarranted tax deduction of £1.2m. The Court of Appeal said the scheme was specifically designed to avoid tax. Some of the 230 wealthy individuals who first used the scheme in 2005 have settled their tax bills with HMRC but about £80m could have been lost to the UK if this latest appeal had been successfu...