The Hardman Lecture Revisited

On 11 November 2014, at the kind invitation of the ICAEW I gave the Hardman lecture. The text can be read here. In that lecture, I observed, in relation to the operation of the General Anti Abuse Rule:

Several days later, Ed Balls announced that the Labour Party would, on taking Government, introduce such a regime. And in the Autumn Statement, the present Government, too, announced that it intended to follow suit and would consult on whether and how to introduce a GAAR specific penalties regime.

A further concern I expressed in the Hardman Lecture was that the High Risk Promoters Regime introduced several months earlier in the Finance Act 2014 might not be fit for purpose:

This suggestion, too, looks to have been picked up by the Government. As the Autumn Statement Green Book records:

I am sorry not ever to have met Philip Hardman, in whose name the annual lecture is given. I can only hope he would have been pleased.