Good for the FT for giving publicity to the ongoing agony of the Arc pension fraud victims. This is a specialist pension blog and so has covered the fraud many times over the years. Sue Flood has had her testimony published, you can read it here.

But it’s been three years since I wrote about Sue and the Ark pension victims and in those three years, it seems the sword of Damocles has continued to hang over victims’ heads. The current TV series about the injustices heaped on the head of post office managers unwittingly dragged into the mire springs to mind. They had no choice but to use the Horizon software, mis-programmed by Fujitsu while Ark the HMRC and their lawyers say that Ark victims chose pension liberation. But the point is that they did so because they were advised to do so, typically by characters like Stephen Ward , who held themselves out to be expert, regulated and quasi Government officials.

HMRC now find themselves at the end of half a decade of dispute that will have cost the tax-payer way more than the tax demanded of the victims. Margret Snowden is quoted in Robert Wright’s FT article, to the point as ever

“They’re pursuing them for relatively small amounts in the scheme of things, when what they should be doing is pursuing all these scammers and seizing their assets to pay for the tax losses,”

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Time has moved on – So should the HMRC

Some of the victims, including Jeremy Crawford, mentioned by the FT, have paid some or all of the demands from HMRC. Others, like Sue Flood, are still waiting to hear what the final demand will be. Some will not be able to meet the demands and find that their pension fund is not just lost, but may now force them into bankruptcy or worse.

Angie Brooks, who has acted for many of the Ark victims over the years, reports that some who have died while waiting for their bills, have taken their own lives.

For some, there is no way back, but for those who have paid and are still to pay, there is still time for HMRC to declare an amnesty, hand back money it has received for receiving “unauthorised payments” and desist from further action against those still to pay.

The HMRC may argue that they have a duty to persist and they have no such discretion. But pardons are the prerogative of those in power and the power behind HMRC is the Treasury.

Pension Liberation is no longer an active way to scam, those who entered into these schemes did so more than a decade ago. There is no way that such an amnesty would encourage scammers to reopen liberation schemes and little incentive – since pension freedom was granted, for people to want to use liberation schemes.

Time should not be against natural justice, instead it should be a healer. It really is time for HMRC to be requested by those in Treasury who have the interests of pensions and pensioners at heart, to stop the HMRC persecution of pension liberation victims.