Edwin Coe, the UK’s first class action firm, welcomes decision of HMRC to abandon its claim for £1.6bn ‘dry tax’ in Eclipse film investment schemes

Today HMRC published an offer to tax payers who invested in the Eclipse film investment schemes in which HMCTS will abandon its long running claim for tax on fictional returns on the purported investment.

Edwin Coe is acting for almost 400 of Eclipse investors in a claim against HSBC for fraud in the selling of the Eclipse schemes.

David Greene, Senior Partner said “The offer being made by HMCTS effectively to abandon its claim for tax on declared income that we now discover was fictional is welcome news for so many. The amount of tax for individuals, some £1.6 bn in total, was an existential threat to assets and livelihoods.

This is the right answer from the Revenue in the face of our appeal for one of the partnerships and on behalf of investors. The Revenue recognise that the whole mechanism constructed by HSBC and others was false and, having examined all the contractual documents, concluded that the income that was declared by partnerships was, in fact, fictional. It now just remains for HSBC to make good the substantial actual losses of investors deriving from the cash invested.”