Steve Bolton and Chris Cooper’s “Clause 24 - Alice in Wonderland tax grab” campaign is CrowdJustice’s most successful yet. We caught up with Steve to find out a bit more about it
The campaign team
Steve, the entrepreneur behind Platinum Property Partners (PPP), and Chris, a member of airline cabin crew and buy-to-let landlord, are its driving forces.
It came about following Parliament’s introduction of the Finance Act 2015. Clause 24 of the Act introduces a new tax arrangement that impacts buy-to-let landlords by changing what constitutes profit, and in so doing increasing what they have to pay tax on. A tax Steve has described as being, “from Alice in Wonderland – truly absurd and divorced from real life.”
Chris, whose small property portfolio represents his retirement plan, realised immediately what the impact would be. It had the potential to wipe out much of what he expected to live off once he finished working. He knew he would not be alone in this.
He called Steve, knowing that among PPP’s 250 partners would be many others who would be similarly affected. Together they rang lawyer friends and researched online to try and determine what legal options were available to challenge the new tax.
For Steve, the decision to bring the CrowdJustice campaign to fund a judicial review was,
“very logical, driven by a sense of caring about the UK property sector. The tax would have lots of unintended consequences. There was a sense of injustice, so we decided to do something about it.”
Speaking for many
Sensing they spoke on behalf of many in the buy-to-let market, they instructed solicitor firm, Omnia, headed up by Cherie Blair, to investigate their options.
The tight timescales of a judicial review forced them to act quickly. Within days they had got the word out, and set up the crowdfunding campaign. Rallying the buy-to-let community around, they hit their initial £15,000 target in just 24 hours. Within a few days, they had reached their stretch target of £50,000, raised from 737 donors.
The pre-action protocol letter that represents the first step in the judicial review process, was sent to HMRC at the end of January.
While they wait for a response, Steve and Chris continue to spread the word about the campaign, helping buy-to-let landlords understand the potential impact if the new tax were to come into effect. They have received considerable national press coverage, including in the Daily Mail and extensively by the Telegraph, even hitting the front page, and on Reuters and BBC South East news.
The groundswell of support has enabled them to take the campaign to new levels. As the judicial review progresses they are reaching out to industry bodies to garner support. Decision-makers at the highest levels have started to take notice, including Government Ministers whom they have been invited to meet with to explain their concerns.
Where next?
Steve and Chris continue to foster the community of donors and supporters whose backing has already brought them so far. They have a busy facebook page, while online property-related forums are abuzz with the news, including property118 and propertytribes. Steve has even allocated one of his PPP staff to manage the campaign as it continues to gather momentum and receive ever more attention from around the country.
The next stage they have planned is to bring together all the interested parties at a workshop to crowdsource ideas how to keep the momentum of the campaign going and ensure its impact is as great as possible.
While they may have hit their target, the case is far from over. With the energy and talents of Chris and Steve behind it, it seems anything is possible.
This blog also appeared as part of our Medium collection.
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