schmunk
Why oh why oh why?
I was very aware of Ranger's cases 1 and 2. There were sophisticated tax schemes set up for the wealthy and high earners, some famous celebs and broadcasters included.
The poster was talking about an IT employee at his firm, who simply set up a small limited company five years ago and was paid 3x as much as a freelancer, and boasted that he paid a grand total of 10% in corporate and personal taxes on the whole lot (through a basic salary and dividends). For the average Joe consultant grossing fantastic money like that, typically £300 to £750 an hour (equating to several £100k a year), and I've known many, 10% was not the tax rate 5 years ago. It did definitely paid off compared to be employed, but not to that extent.
Totally agree with you about EBT's plus the Image Rights scam.
There were lots of offshore umbrellas offering EBT loan schemes, under various names and subtleties, to average Joe contractors back in the day. I had a couple of former IT contractors for my company sniffing around with a form letter from some website trying to scare us into indemnitying them for the loan charge. I told them where to stick it and haven't heard back.