{"id":20528,"date":"2013-05-07T07:25:52","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T06:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=20528"},"modified":"2013-05-07T07:25:52","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T06:25:52","slug":"is-it-really-business-as-usual-at-hmrc-as-ministers-support-its-persecution-of-a-whistleblower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/05\/07\/is-it-really-business-as-usual-at-hmrc-as-ministers-support-its-persecution-of-a-whistleblower\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it really business as usual at HMRC as ministers support its persecution of a whistleblower?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Guardian has reported overnight<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The minister in charge of\u00a0tax\u00a0expressed support for a strategy to undermine evidence from a whistleblower who uncovered the notorious\u00a0Goldman Sachs\u00a0\"sweetheart\" deal, according to emails seen by the Guardian.<\/p>\n

David Gauke, the exchequer secretary to the Treasury, approved of a plan to brief a journalist with information to help discredit testimony from Osita Mba, a solicitor with HM Revenue and Customs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now the evidence that's been published is not unambiguous, I admit. Certainly Gauke did, in the end, leave Hartnett to make his own comment but yet again I think\u00a0Margaret\u00a0Hodge (who has, I suspect seem the whole correspondence) seems to have got this right, saying:<\/p>\n

\"The government claims it is committed to ensuring that big business and wealthy individuals pay their fair share of tax, she said. \"But this raises serious questions about whether, behind the scenes, it is simply a case of business as usual.<\/p>\n

\"The minister responsible appears to have gone along with HMRC's efforts to dismiss out of hand our criticisms, and public concerns, around these 'sweetheart' deals, efforts which involved attempting to discredit the evidence of a whistleblower who had come forward. Clearly, he [the minister] and HMRC have questions to answer.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that this is the case is supported by a no doubt well sourced comment in the Guardian that says:<\/p>\n

A Treasury spokesperson said Gauke was \"entirely supportive\" of HMRC's large-business strategy, and agreed that inaccurate statements about it should be corrected by HMRC.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There's much to make any\u00a0reasonable\u00a0and informed observer think that all that the\u00a0government\u00a0says on tax is\u00a0simply\u00a0PR guff. Whilst saying it will be tough on tax avoidance it has\u00a0entered\u00a0into aggressive tax\u00a0competition\u00a0on rates whilst\u00a0massively\u00a0increasing the\u00a0opportunity\u00a0for big business\u00a0to move profit out of the UK in a series of moves over the last three years. Now it's clear that they did not support a whistleblower who was entitled to legal protection when reporting that HMRC had acted incorrectly at the\u00a0highest\u00a0level (something now admitted). What next, I wonder? A UKIP inspired tax haven UK?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Guardian has reported overnight: The minister in charge of\u00a0tax\u00a0expressed support for a strategy to undermine evidence from a whistleblower who uncovered the notorious\u00a0Goldman
 Read the full article…<\/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":[16,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-hmrc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20528","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=20528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}