Freedom Sipp hearing pushed back to October
Share
The High Court has today adjourned a hearing that could see Freedom Sipp wound up and the firm’s clients hit with a tax charge of up to £66m, until October 14.
The case will now be heard by a judge.
HM Revenue & Customs applied to have the Sipp provider wound up due to a dispute involving outstanding VAT payments, Money Marketing understands.
If HMRC is successful in winding up the firm it will de-register the pension scheme, which would trigger an immediate 40 per cent tax charge on all assets.
Freedom Sipp terms and conditions state this charge would be passed to the firm’s clients. At February last year, Freedom Sipp held assets worth £165m for around 350 members.
The decision to adjourn the case should give customers more time to transfer their funds out of Freedom Sipp, although this is proving difficult for many.
Freedom Sipp has been closed to new business since September 2008. The FSA changed the firm’s permission in July after finding it failed to seek the right customer authorisation before moving funds and also failed to notify customers of charges deducted from their funds.
HMRC refused to comment on the court case or the consequences of a wind-up.
A spokeswoman for the courts says: “It has been adjourned until October 14 but it has been passed over to a judge. There is more to this case which means it cannot just go on the standard winding up list as it is more complicated.”
If you enjoyed this article, sign up here to receive daily email updates from Money Marketing and Follow @_moneymarketing
