Loan charge review – call for evidence launched

The call for evidence was published on Friday 28 March. It can be found on GOV.UK, along with the terms of reference of the review.

While there is a great deal of information already publicly available on the loan charge, the ‘call for evidence’ means that you are able to share your personal views and experiences of the loan charge with the reviewer.

If you would like your voice to be heard, but don’t really know how to respond or have never done anything like this before – here are some tips to help you:

• The reviewer, Ray McCann has requested that where possible, people use the call for evidence form to provide answers. Due to the large volume of information, he may not be able to consider responses returned in alternative formats.
• You can download the call for evidence form and save it somewhere locally to work on in stages. You may need to enable editing on the document and you should remember to save your work if you want to come back to it.
• Individuals should answer the questions in sections 1 to 4.
• Although the boxes look small, they expand as you type. However, often a short and concise response is considered most useful.
• You do not need to answer all the questions. If you wish not to provide a response to any question, please simply leave that box blank.
• There is no right or wrong way to respond - just saying things naturally, in your own words, can be very powerful
• If the questions do not cover what you want to say, there is a ‘any further information’ free-form box in section 6. Please note the terms of reference of the review when completing this box. Also note that the review is particularly interested in understanding the role of promoters; and in your experiences of dealing with HMRC.
• Once you have completed the form, you should attach it to an email and send it to [email protected]. The deadline for submissions is 12 noon, 30 May 2025.
• Evidence received after the deadline may not be considered by the review.
• If you want to provide copies of supporting evidence, make clear which question they refer to. You could do this by saving the document under the relevant name – for example ‘Your Name, evidence question 2_3.’ Then attach it to the email and send it in with the call for evidence form.

What happens while the review is taking place?

A briefing note from HMRC explaining what the review means was published on GOV.UK. You can find a summary of the situation in our guidance.

What happens after the review?

A report with the review’s findings and recommendations will be sent to the government by summer 2025, which will be published. Information you have provided to the review may be referenced in that report. However, this will not identify particular individuals.

As you will note from the bullet points above, the reviewer, Ray McCann is keen to receive evidence to back up points made in responses. This includes evidence in the form of documents, for example promoter marketing material. As these documents may contain sensitive or personal data, for data protection purposes, a records management policy has also been published, which explains what will happen to the evidence you provide and should be read alongside the privacy notice.