The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has rightly criticised "cosy" deals between HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and big businesses over the way they settle their tax bills. Serious concerns have been expressed by MP’s about just exactly how some of the large tax settlements were reached. MPs believe that potentially there may be some £25 billion pounds worth of outstanding tax issues with some of the UK’s largest companies and they want HMRC to be much more open about its dealing with large firms.
Not surprisingly HMRC has said that the MPs had misunderstood the facts. If the MPs are correct and I see no reason why they should not be as whistle-blower from inside HMRC passed them some interesting information (according to Radio 4 on Tuesday morning). Perhaps they should do some digging to find out how many former HMRC employees have moved to potentially lucrative employment in the private sector.
Coincidentally the tax campaign group UK Uncut is taking HMRC to the High Court (today - Thursday 22nd December) to seek a judicial review to try to get them to reclaim millions of pounds in uncollected tax from Goldman Sachs. It's all a little awkward for David (‘Call me Dave’) Cameron as it either touched a raw nerve or at least exposed the lie at the heart of his much trumpeted “We are all in it together” – apparently not!
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