However, the Financial Ombudsman Service does at least abide by the three and six-year rules as set out in the Limitation Act 1980 and Latent Damages Act 1986.
The FSCS has confirmed that compensation rule 8.2.4 in the FCA handbook expressly allows it to disregard limitation issues where it is satisfied that is reasonable to do so.
So, we have a system where we pay ever-increasing fees, have no legal time-bar defences and no right of appeal.
Alan Lakey
Highclere Financial Services
Tax elephant in the room
Following your article MPs told self-employed tax discrepancy “hard to justify”’ (Sep 17).
There is a very good and quite obvious reason why self-employed workers should be taxed differently, and I’m at a complete loss as to why it doesn’t occur to all of these advisers and supposed experts.
The self-employed do not get any paid holiday, nor receive any sick pay. It of course would be fair to pay the same amount of tax if the self-employed were then also entitled to a tax break equivalent in value to four or five weeks’ pay.
HM Revenue & Customs and the government, deliberately one assumes, ignore this key point as it would offset the extra tax they are seeking to levy under the IR35 changes.
Surely this is the real elephant in the room?
Name and address supplied
Forgotten details
I have read with interest your article on the suggested discrepancy in the tax levied on the self-employed. (‘MPs told self-employed tax discrepancy “hard to justify”’, Sep 17).
It appears the people and MPs quoted in the article have overlooked several factors that impact on the self-employed that do not impact on the employed.
The reason national insurance for the self-employed is lower is that they do not qualify for many of the benefits that the employed receive – the first that comes to mind is sick pay.
In addition to the above, the self-employed have only ever received a fixed and lower state pension compared to the employed.
Then there is the issue that the self-employed have none of the security and rights that an employee benefits from. If an employee is terminated from their job they have rights that allow them to claim unfair dismissal and redundancy.
Comparing the self-employed with employees is like comparing apples and pears. On the surface they look similar, but there are many differences.
If this or any government over tax the self-employed they will find there won’t be any small businesses or innovation left in this country.
Name and address supplied
