{"id":20322,"date":"2013-04-26T08:19:25","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T07:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=20322"},"modified":"2013-04-26T08:19:59","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T07:19:59","slug":"hmrc-and-the-big-4-the-bigger-the-gap-between-them-the-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/04\/26\/hmrc-and-the-big-4-the-bigger-the-gap-between-them-the-better\/","title":{"rendered":"HMRC and the Big 4: the process of corporate capture of our tax authority has reached danger point"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-22296769\" target=\"_blank\">Public Accounts Committee has spoken<\/a>: the relationship between the Big 4 firms of accountants and HMRC is far too close and is a threat to the objectivity of UK tax policy.<\/p>\n<p>I agree. Having been on a Treasury committee\u00a0recently\u00a0as an 'outsider' it was quite a shock to get so many mails from Big 4 firms who were supposedly the HMRC 'insiders' in the process. Those seconded don't even change their email addresses when undertaking\u00a0government\u00a0business, which also means that we now have the absurd position that government business takes place through the file servers of the Big 4.<\/p>\n<p>This situation is wholly unacceptable - unless\u00a0you're\u00a0the Big 4, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/business\/2013\/apr\/26\/accountancy-firms-knowledge-treasury-avoid-tax\" target=\"_blank\">who the Guardian quote<\/a>, and who seem entirely happy with the\u00a0arrangement.<\/p>\n<p>I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/04\/22\/who-should-be-running-hmrc-if-it-isnt-to-be-the-big-4-and-senior-business-people\/\" target=\"_blank\">have said time and again<\/a> that it is wrong that HMRC is now chaired by someone whose career was as a KPMG tax partner, that a former PWC partner is also on the HMRC Board and that big business totally dominates the whole of the rest of its non executive direction. This is\u00a0corporate\u00a0capture of a\u00a0regulator\u00a0that is bound to erode confidence in its impartiality, at best, and actually be corrupting at worst. And when a large part of HMRC's policy is now not just driven by lobbying from big\u00a0business, but is actually written by it by supposedly seconding staff into HMRC then that process of capture\u00a0is almost complete.<\/p>\n<p>The process undermines democracy.<\/p>\n<p>It undermines the civil service.<\/p>\n<p>It undermines HMRC.<\/p>\n<p>And in the process it undermines the likelihood of our society surviving.<\/p>\n<p>The Big 4 may be very relaxed about that. I am not. And nor should anyone in the 99% be so.<\/p>\n<p>Margaret Hodge has done us all a service by highlighting the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Public Accounts Committee has spoken: the relationship between the Big 4 firms of accountants and HMRC is far too close and is a threat<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/04\/26\/hmrc-and-the-big-4-the-bigger-the-gap-between-them-the-better\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,14,107,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-4","category-corruption","category-hmrc","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}