Campaigners who want HMRC to stop pursuing freelance workers have hit out at tax avoidance guru Doug Barrowman and Baroness Michelle Mone’s wedding plans.
The high-profile couple have announced they are to tie the knot in a private chapel at the Palace of Westminster, before hosting a celebration in a nearby five-star hotel.
Loan Charge Action Group (LCAG) has branded the timing “sickening”.
The pressure group represents people who signed up to a failed tax avoidance scheme generated by one of Barrowman’s firms.
The billionaire, 54, was a director of Aston Management Ltd (AML), which offered tax advice to freelance workers including engineers, social workers and locum doctors.
Under the scheme, a person’s salary was diverted to an offshore trust, which then gave the worker an interest-free loan.
The taxman believes it opened a loophole that allowed people to avoid paying tax and national insurance.
Many now have crippling six-figure demands after HM Revenue and Customs was given the power by Parliament in 2017 to claw back the unpaid tax, called a loan charge.
LCAG spokesman Steve Packham said: “It’s absolutely sickening that, as many AML clients are facing ruin due to the loan charge, it’s announced that Doug Barrowman will be marrying Conservative peer Michelle Mone in an exclusive ceremony in the private chapel in the Houses of Parliament.
“Many people are facing bankruptcy and loss of homes and we know of two AML clients facing the loan charge who have tragically taken their own lives.
“Yet as ordinary people are being hounded by HMRC, Conservative ministers are doing nothing about the
promoters of these schemes, some of whom made huge amounts of money from selling them.”
AML was part of the Isle of Man-based Knox Group of companies led by Barrowman. He was criticised in the Commons in October for his role in the scheme.
LCAG claims seven people, including four in Scotland, have taken their own lives after loan charge demands from HMRC.
A 43-year-old engineer based in Glasgow who was an AML client took his own life three months ago after being hit with a tax demand for £40,000, LCAG has claimed.
His family asked that he is not identified. However, his brother said: “My brother believed he was going to lose everything. In my opinion, Doug Barrowman has avoided any scrutiny over this scheme and that’s not fair.”
Oil and gas engineer Amy Ross, 39, also of Glasgow, has been hit with a £97,000 tax demand after hiring AML in 2011.
She said: “I’ve been given 24 months to settle but I don’t have that kind of money.”
Barrowman, from Simshill, Glasgow, is said to have six homes, 15 cars and a private jet. He was on a 2015 episode of the TV series Million Pound Mega Yacht, featuring his 183ft boat Turquoise.
Mone, also from Glasgow, founded MJM International with her former husband Michael in 1996. The firm launched the world-famous Ultimo bra.
The 48-year-old was made a Tory peer in 2015.
Barrowman and Mone are set to get married in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in May.
An HMRC spokesman said: “We know that facing a large tax bill can be stressful and our teams will make sure that anyone who genuinely needs extra help gets the support they need.”
Barrowman’s office declined to comment.
