![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Screen-shot-2013-01-05-at-14.28.09.png\" "\\"Screen")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt's astonishing given what has happened on tax that Gauke has remained below the radar. Now that David Cameron says that the department for which he's\u00a0responsible, which is H M Revenue & Customs, has got it all wrong<\/a>, it's time he faced the music.<\/p>\n After all, this is the man who has refused to\u00a0acknowledge\u00a0the importance of the tax gap<\/a>, or its true\u00a0scale, and this is the man \u00a0 who likes to talk about people paying cash to the plumber<\/a> rather than face up to the\u00a0organised\u00a0criminal\u00a0reality\u00a0of what happens in tax havens and this is the man who\u00a0makes\u00a0speeches to the FTSE 100 group<\/a>\u00a0undermining\u00a0the importance of paying\u00a0corporation\u00a0tax and\u00a0praising\u00a0PWC's total tax contribution charade of an accounting system that is designed to\u00a0confuse\u00a0and distort tax debate by delivering spin that favours big companies rather than support\u00a0country-by-country reporting which would disclose just who is and is not really paying tax in this country.<\/p>\n If there's a man who\u00a0personifies\u00a0the failure,\u00a0in the words of the\u00a0Public\u00a0Accounts\u00a0Committee<\/a>, of the UK\u00a0government\u00a0to get a grip on large corporations which generate\u00a0significant income in the UK but pay little or no tax then it is David Gauke. No wonder under his leadership HMRC has failed \"to challenge practices to prevent the abuse of transfer\u00a0pricing, royalty payments, intellectual property pricing and interest payments<\/a>\".<\/p>\n I really do hope 2013 is the year when his teflon coating fails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"