Ethics chief Phil Hodkinson
Tax chiefs at Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs were last night accused of having links to companies engaged in potential tax avoidance.
An in-depth undercover investigation alleges that senior directors of HMRC were connected with companies that may have been involved in limiting tax bills.
The claims come after Chancellor George Osborne condemned tax avoidance as ‘morally repugnant’, even though it is legal.
The investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, Secrets Of The Taxman, to be broadcast tomorrow, alleges:
- HMRC ethics chief Phil Hodkinson earns more than £125,000 a year from a company based in the tax haven of Guernsey.
- John Spence, until recently the Revenue’s audit committee chief, is the chairman of a major estate agents chain whose staff offered advice on avoiding stamp duty.
- The Revenue has awarded a contract for collecting millions of pounds of unpaid tax to a firm owned by a group based in Guernsey.
Last night, HMRC denied any wrongdoing, saying there was no conflict of interest in the directors’ other work
Dispatches, which is not accusing any of the HMRC directors of breaking the law, says Mr Hodkinson, who earns £35,000 a year for his part-time job as HMRC’s ethics committee chairman, also works for insurance giant Resolution, which is incorporated in Guernsey.
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no its will always be the poor mugs pay our taxes but big companies civel servants are even doing it and the bad part they think its ok to evade tax .when its the all pay your tax then we have a society with momey in its public purse
A part time job of £30.000 income???? Well, thats the thing, is that after tax? Before tax? Or no tax factor?
Ysee no one is actually honest are they, politicians need to stop demanding the what they do not pay themselves anyway and no frauds can continue?….
What is going on in this country? They can’t catch those who are fiddling benefits or those who are just fiddling. But what they can do is stop the benefits of those who are not fiddling it. That’s the way they counter the theft of benefits by keeping the cost of paying it in the first place to get it down. So why is it that these tax fiddling cheats, (and using a loop hole in the law makes no difference) loose nothing. These cheats should be stripped of their position and made to pay reconpence. That includes those in government who are at it too.
Don’t know why i am shocked to hear this. This country is now riddled with greedy immoral maggots feeding off the bodies of the poor. The apple is rotten to it’s core. How can this be stopped? The UK needs a massive purge of those in power and those who have power and are abusing it. we need a system of Government that ensures a mix of decent people are at the helm, not fraudulent poverty pimps like this lot. May they be locked up and have their assets appropriated fraudulently redirected to those of us who need it and under European Law, are entitled to a decent standard of living and respect.