back to article MPs blast HMRC for using anti-terrorism laws against whistleblower

The chair of the Public Accounts Committee Margaret Hodge has said she was "shocked to her bone" that the tax authority used laws put in place to combat terrorism to investigate an employee after he blew the whistle on a deal to let Goldman Sachs cut £8m to £20m from its tax bill. The MP challenged the chief exec of HMRC, Lin …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Lawmakers and the law

    > ... laws put in place to combat terrorism to investigate an employee

    The most worrying aspect is that someone who plays a key role in creating laws, is so clueless about how they get used.

    Hodgey-poos seems to think that once a law is enacted, there is some sort of magical process that makes lawyers read it and think "yes, this is obviously only to be applied in certain, restricted situations - it's not a general-purpose law that could be applied universally".

    The basic point is that law is like badly written computer code that isn't tested before it's released. It's vague, imprecise, subject to interpretation by those (judges) who execute it and doesn't have any IF THEN ELSE protections to govern when and how it is invoked. Think SQL: it describes the desired outcome not the process of getting there.

    1. BristolBachelor Gold badge

      Re: Lawmakers and the law

      Wanted to comment on this too.

      AFAIK the RIPA is only there to LIMIT how far that they can legally go. Nothing says when they can use the powers, only that they can't go past them. Terrorism was given as an excuse to create the powers, but nobody saw fit to have the law written so that they may only be used in those cases.

      1. Scott Wheeler

        Re: Lawmakers and the law

        As far as I know, RIPA was not justified on the basis of counter-terrorism. It's simply there to define which authorities can require interception, and what authorisation they require for it - and this has always included use for criminal investigation. A RIPA-type law was clearly needed as prior to that it was ambiguous who had the right to intercepts, which could lead to abuse. Of course it's possible to argue that it permits interception too easily (and I would agree with this), but that doesn't argue against the need to define the legal framework for interception.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lawmakers and the law

        > but nobody saw fit to have the law written so that they may only be used in those cases.

        I would go farther in my accusation, and say that they saw it unfit to have the law written so that it may only be used in those cases.

    2. squigbobble

      Re: Lawmakers and the law

      I distinctly remember that, when someone from the opposition asserted in Parliament that the Prevention of Terrorism Act was too broad and could be used on a variety of not-very-terrorist things, the response was that 'this is not the intent of this legislation'. Doublethink or did whoever it was think nobody else knew that the UK legal system hinges on the letter of the law, not the intentions of whoever drafted it.

      Makes a change from councils using it to investigate your bins or to brand and entire country as a terrorist entity because they had the temerity to swallow the bitter pill in dealing with a banking crisis, instead of going berserk with the gaffer tape.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lawmakers and the law

        Ministerial statements made during the debate of a bill form part of the jurisprudence that must be taken into account in interpreting the law. So whatever that statement to the effect that 'this is not the intent of this legislation' IS part of the law.

        Though, being a ministerial statement made on Blair's watch, I guess we will find it's pretty weasely as to exactly WHAT it defines as outside the law's intent..

      2. Malcolm Boura

        Re: Lawmakers and the law

        If I had a pound for every time I have read "it is not our intention that" from the Home Office when proposed legislation does do exactly that then I would by now be very much richer.

    3. TrishaD

      Re: Lawmakers and the law

      "Hodgey-poos seems to think that once a law is enacted, there is some sort of magical process that makes lawyers read it and think "yes, this is obviously only to be applied in certain, restricted situations - it's not a general-purpose law that could be applied universally". "

      Gosh, and here's me thinking that that's what lawyers did for a living.

      p.s Hodge is Chair of a Select Committee. This stuff is what she's employed to do. The Select Committee forms part of the system of checks and balances that are supposed to make government agencies accountable to Parliament. Her qualities (or lack of them) as a member of a former government are irrelevant

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lawmakers and the law

      "The most worrying aspect is that someone who plays a key role in creating laws, is so clueless about how they get used".

      Quite agree. But I very much doubt whether Enver Hodgea has ever "played a key role" in creating a law. People like her - perhaps the radicals and socialists even more than conservatives*** - have a weird idea that all they need do is state a vague requirement and leave others to draft a law that will nail it down and make it happen (or not happen, as the case may be).

      Exactly as so many sponsors of software projects think all they have to do is give a brief description of their "concept" (about 2 percent of the necessary requirements, usually) and then leave it to "the techies" to make it happen. Then they get upset when the result is wildly different from their own private vision.

      *** If there were any conservatives left in politics, which there haven't been for many years.

      1. Ted Treen
        Big Brother

        Re: Lawmakers and the law

        Not just Enver...

        Look at the track record of the fragrant & delightful Ms Homer...

        Although it's from the DM, she would have sued if it were materially incorrect. It seems in today's civil service, incompetence gets you to the top, the innocent are punished and the guilty rewarded.

        Just like Parliament, really. What do we have to do to cull these terminally incompetent self-serving arrogant troughers?

        "Born in Norfolk, Ms Homer studied law at University College London, before working at Reading Council for two years then Hertfordshire Council, where over a period of 15 years, she rose to the position of Director of Corporate Services.

        This proved the springboard for her first major town hall job, in 1998, as chief executive of Suffolk Council.

        Just four years later, the married mother of three daughters was parachuted into the same post at Birmingham City Council, on a jaw-dropping £174,000-year.

        In 2005 she was accused of throwing ‘the rule book out of the window’ in a major postal votes scandal in Birmingham that ended up before the courts.

        Election judge Richard Mawrey said fraud in the city ‘would have disgraced a banana republic’. He described Mrs Homer’s decision to allow postal ballot papers to be transported to the count in shopping bags as ‘the direst folly’.

        But later that year she was chosen by the Home Office to run what was then called the Immigration and Nationality Directorate – this time on £200,000, plus bonuses.

        Already in chaos, it was on her watch in 2006 that we learned of the mistaken release of 1,000 foreign criminals.

        It later emerged some 450,000 asylum cases had not been dealt with but left in boxes at the Home Office.

        The new UKBA was meant to clear up the mess, and Mrs Homer became its first chief executive, on an astonishing £208,000 a year.

        But among a fresh run of scandals was the revelation that nearly 400 of the 1,000 foreign prisoners were told they could stay in Britain and dozens remained untraced.

        Promotion came again in 2011 when she was handed the the post of Permanent Secretary at the Transport Department where she stayed for barely a year before winning her biggest job to date – running HMRC.

        Since then she has been criticised for failing to tackle tax avoidance, admitting in November last year that over half of Britain’s biggest 770 firms funnel profits overseas.

        Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298578/There-penalties-poor-performance-civil-service-MPs-astounded-boss-failing-Border-Agency-Lin-Homer-charge-HMRC.html#ixzz2wywFWe6n

        1. All names Taken
          Paris Hilton

          Re: Lawmakers and the law

          What connections in those sectors does the lucky person happen to have?

        2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: Lawmakers and the law

          >Look at the track record of the fragrant & delightful Ms Homer...

          So all those people who claim you have to go to Eton to succeed in this government only have to look at the shining example of Ms Homer,

      2. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: Lawmakers and the law

        Tom Welsh

        "If there were any conservatives left in politics, which there haven't been for many years."

        I hear they still exist but dont run the party any more. The nearest I have found is UKIP.

    5. Don Jefe

      Re: Lawmakers and the law

      There's a traditional debate in my field that deals with tools and how they are used. Summarized, the debate has two basic stances:

      - Tool Users argue that if a tool can be used effectively for something outside of its initial scope of design then that additional use is just as valid as the original intended use. That's simply natural Human behavior as our place at the top of the entree list is a function of our adaptability.

      - Tool Makers argue that although a tool might appear to work just fine in unintended applications, both the tool, and the thing it is being used on, are being damaged in ways not immediately noticeable, but nevertheless damage is occurring deep within both things and catastrophic failure of one, or both, things will occur if such uses continue.

      It all makes a nice analogue with use/misuse of legislation doesn't it. My tools cost enormous amounts of money, are very dangerous if you get ego on them or don't apply sufficient respect and anyone truly proficient in their use has an unbelievably huge quantity of tools, most of which rarely get used, but deliver significantly superior results when they are used. Results are the goal after all right?

      Those results also increase in value the same way in physical work and legislation. Simple objects and laws with 'digital' specs are easy. Does the thing you've made pass the 'go-no go' gauge? Were you exceeding the 70kph speed limit? That's student work. But when you move away from yes/no issues and into broad concepts that, by default, have meanings that vary with each situation you've got real challenges that need real experts and a comprehensive set of tools to deal with.

      Again, we encounter analogues, this time with education and politics. I've got this big speech I give to new interns about how they'll never meet someone 'good' in our field who hasn't suffered a serious injury that leaves them with a permanent limp or needing a custom glove maker. That moves the crux of the issue to being good at judging character because the only people who aren't fucked up are the true masters of the field and the dangerously naive who don't know enough to discriminate between success and Success. There's a big fucking difference.

      How you achieve your goal(s) is exactly as important as actually achieving them. Just because a tool appears to get the job done is never, by itself, sufficient enough justification to use an inappropriate tool. You've not only got to be certain about what possible side effects may occur, you've got to have solutions and mitigation processes ready to go before you put an 11' extension on that ratchet. Just as crucially, you've got to be dead certain that you won't damage the tool in some hidden way that could make it dangerous if someone uses it properly in some future task. Don't have all those things? Fuck you, you're not doing it.

      Knowing how to establish all those elements and having the discipline to not do something if those elements aren't there is the difference between an actual professional and a student or dangerous elected asshole. I don't care what the book says, and I give zero shits what the law says. Authority, 'legal permission', to create a dangerous situation does not mean you can do, or not do, something. It means you won't get in trouble with the law if you do something. But it's critical to note that trouble with the law isn't the only kind of trouble you can be in. I swear, by all that is unholy, dark, soulless and damnable that I will make pot holders from the faces of your loved ones and I will play their bones on stage at Wolftrap next time the Carolina Chocolate Drops are in town if your dangerous actions, or their repercussions, harm my staff or family.

      Act like a professional and back away if something is dangerous. Even in the face of enormous pressure, loss of treasure or the loss of your career. If you can't, or won't, do that you never had the right to be in a position where you could make serious decisions.

      I'll end with this. Everybody has heard that saying 'a true craftsman never blames his tools'. Well, that's 100% bullshit. A true craftsman will change the situation to suit the tools available to him. If appropriate tools aren't available the true craftsman will create the appropriate tools, walk away or sub out what he can't do. But the true craftsman never uses the inappropriate tool.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lawmakers and the law

      >The basic point is that law is like badly written computer code that isn't tested before it's released. It's vague, imprecise, subject to interpretation by those (judges) who execute it

      I used to think that too, but there are now sufficient of these "badly written law" examples where the actual use for various forms of persecution has eclipsed the supposed original intent, that whoever is drafting these laws must be aware of this possibility, and indeed I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the Home Office has a shopping list of nasties ready to slip into legislation along with a suitably emollient reassurance that "it will never be used in that way".

      It seems to me that if a law can be mis-used, it will be mis-used, sooner or later, and our current rather lacklustre crop of MPs don't have the perspicacity or the chutzpah to stand up for the citizen against the state, Hodge's comments notwithstanding.

    7. Jim 59

      Re: Lawmakers and the law

      G-S was excused 10 million tax under Dave Hartnett's rule. According to the Telegraph, Dave was the most wined and dined civil servant in Britain. Dave has eaten a lot of chocolate cake belonging to big accountancy companies, and last year, a big accountancy company gave Dave a job, where he will reportedly "work", er, 1 day a week.

      Part II The scouring of the whistleblower, has happened while Lin Homer is in charge. Well you can't blame them. He may not be a terrorist, but Mba's honesty and courage will indeed be terrifying to some senior officials in HMRC.

      Part III the committee. Not criticizing Hodge, but these committees are so ineffective we might as well not have them. The questioners don't seem to act in concert, or to get their plan together beforehand, or to question in any logical order. Rather then seeking the truth, these committees seem happy to accept whatever information is pleases the witnesses to provide.

    8. Malcolm Boura

      Re: Lawmakers and the law

      That has been blatantly obvious from the proceedings over the Anti-social Behaviour Bill which recently became law. Absolutely no comprehension that if laws can be abused then they will be ahused. Combine that with the absurd notion that the High Court is an option for anybody other than those on legal aid and the super rich ant it is a recipe for injustice. Have they learnt nothing from the Andrew Mitchell affair and all the other abuses?

  2. Mad Mike

    We want action

    They can say whatever they like, but until they actually do something, nothing will change. MPs are just full of hot air and say this sort of thing to get press headlines etc. and then do absolutely nothing. The various civil servants know this, so act a little contrite (sometimes) and then just continue on as before. Until significant numbers of them start loosing their jobs (without payoffs) over this sort of thing, nothing will ever change.

    Margaret Hodge is one of the biggest windbags out there. Almost completely clueless about everything, she simply goes for headlines. She helped get the law into place and now complains about it. Talk about playing both sides.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: We want action @Mad Mike

      So other than posting here, what are you doing to try to bring this action about? Because the complaints about RIPA that've been aired here since it came out seem to have achieved - well, nothing.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: We want action @Mad Mike

        We have a plan - we just need a few hundred barrels of gunpowder, a cellar and somebody to set them off.

        You have the mask, can you help?

        1. Random Q Hacker

          Re: We want action @Mad Mike

          Brave man, we'll see you in Guantanamo! Rest assured you'll be boosting the anti-terrorism foiled plot numbers, and helping to justify continued funding!

          1. Bluenose

            Re: We want action @Mad Mike

            What on earth makes you think he'll end up in Guantanamo? That's the last place they will put him. There are lots of other places that we don't know about within easy reach of a learjet that they can send him.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: We want action @Mad Mike

            "Brave man, we'll see you in Guantanamo! Rest assured you'll be boosting the anti-terrorism foiled plot numbers, and helping to justify continued funding!"

            What do you base that on? It certainly doesn't follow on from what I said. Buffoon.

            1. Jamie Jones Silver badge
              Facepalm

              Re: We want action @Mad Mike

              " What do you base that on? It certainly doesn't follow on from what I said. Buffoon."

              Obviously, he wasn't replying to you.

              Buffoon.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: We want action @Mad Mike

          "We have a plan - we just need a few hundred barrels of gunpowder, a cellar and somebody to set them off.

          You have the mask, can you help?"

          So my point about the keyboard warriors stands then. I expected as little.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: We want action @Mad Mike

            "So my point about the keyboard warriors stands then. I expected as little".

            And what are YOU doing about it, then? The rest of us are just letting off steam, because we understand that's all we can do. And because this is a relatively free country, we can do so without being tortured, shot in the back of the head, or shoved out of a helicopter over the sea. (I hope).

            On the other hand, that's about as far as our freedom extends. The political system in this country cannot be changed - not by violence, nor by sweet reason. That's partly because most of our compatriots have been brainwashed with the belief that we have the best political system possible (give or take) so only a maniac would want to change it. It's also because the people who really run the country know exactly what they are doing, and why, and they are perfectly happy with the system of defence in depth that they have set up to keep things they way they want them.

    2. Tom 38
  3. Crisp

    Terrorism laws being used for something other than combating terrorism?

    Margaret Hodge is a little late to the party isn't she? Or is passing bad laws only something she takes an interest in when it directly embarrasses her?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Terrorism laws being used for something other than combating terrorism?

      No, anti-organised crime laws being used for organised crime.

      RIPA came about before Terrorism was a buzzword for why you should get your own way.

  4. Miek
    Linux

    Unsurprising at best, they will justify it by saying "We did nothing wrong" or "It was a matter of National Security" or some trumped up crap like that.

  5. dogged

    > HMRC has said that it has changed its practices since the deal was struck.

    trans: They no longer ask Goldman Sachs to pay any tax at all.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @dogged

      "trans: They no longer ask Goldman Sachs to pay any tax at all".

      Hi! Always glad to meet a fellow Private Eye reader. 8-)

  6. Lockwood

    RIPA's the thing that lets councils fine you for trying to recycle a glass jar if they can't recycle glass, or for throwing a newspaper away as household waste, right?

  7. Velv
    Big Brother

    This is a PERFECT example of why rushed laws are regularly seriously flawed.

    Westminster are bad at it, but the Holyrood Scottish Parliament (under both leaderships) has been worse, banning "this" and mandating "that".

    Whichever way Scotland votes this year, both Westminster and Holyrood are going to need to learn to write laws without pandering to the Daily Mail et al. Laws should only be there as a last resort for those people who cannot be part of a functioning communal society, not to shape the general "good".

    1. All names Taken
      Happy

      Vote

      AYE

      1. dogged

        Re: Vote

        Can we get a referendum in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on whether Scotland should just fuck off?

        1. All names Taken
          Happy

          Re: Vote

          Of course - but context, language and aggression might influence the cost per barrel of oil, per litre of water, per measure of whiskey (I won't mention the beer - 30 shillings - shrugs), per m cube of gas, ... Might all be duly affected against the interests of others?

          1. dogged

            Re: Vote

            Oil revenues? That old chestnut again? Good luck paying for your free university places with those.

            And frankly, though I'm loath to say it, some of the Welsh whiskies are nicer than most of the blended piss you bastards ship down here and 30 shillings is a sad, pale attempt at a proper bitter.

            Of course, the loss of Scotland would leave England with an immediate shortage of fat ginger drunks and probably well oversupplied for heart-disease treatments in the NHS but I'm sure we can work out a trade.

        2. Don Jefe

          Re: Vote

          I'm sure some sort of referendum could be arranged for getting rid of those places. But it isn't likely to happen for the same reasons we keep South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas in the republic. That's where cannon fodder comes from.

          Young men you can arm, then throw at foreign countries who don't want what you're selling or worship your god in a different way don't grow on trees you know.

          The Romans were the last to really try integration of subject countries. That didn't work as well as they wanted. It's been 'best practice' for a long time now to make people's a part of the group, but in their own, special ways that remind them of their 'proper' place in the order of things. That way you can stick them in front of all the 'actual' citizens who will 'guard the rear' and do the thinking work.

          1. dogged

            @Don Jefe

            Scotland is a special case for a couple of reasons

            1. They keep going on about how much better off they'd be outside of the UK

            2. They get a referendum this summer on leaving the UK.

            This strikes me as slightly unfair. As a citizen of the nation of the UK that pays for all the others, I'd quite like my tax bill reduced and I'm pretty sick of the Scots a) getting freebies I don't get (but pay for) and b) going on about what a bastard I am.

            The awful truth is that Scotland probably won't secede because if they did, they couldn't piss away my taxes anymore and it seems a trifle unfair that they get to decide this but I don't.

  8. All names Taken
    Pint

    Has she wet her seat?

    I am surprised MPs are surprised (I thought they were all on the fiddle).

    Or are the MPs miffed because they did not get a share of the action?

    (should there be a "Wake up and smell the coffee icon"?)

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Margaret Hodge "shocked to her bone"

    I'm too embarrassed to ask, which bone she was shocked to... but an excellent Daily Mail headline!

    1. Pete 2 Silver badge

      Re: Margaret Hodge "shocked to her bone"

      Yes, it makes you think that finally someone's put a TASER to good use.

  10. David Pollard

    What did HMRC have to gain?

    Why did they let Goldman Sachs off? Is it a bit like local councils and favourable planning permission decisions, where non-executive directorships are said to be handed out as post-retirement rewards?

    1. dogged

      Re: What did HMRC have to gain?

      Yes.

      That's exactly how it is.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What did HMRC have to gain?

      Look up David Hartnett on Wikipedia and take a look at Private Eye to see what happened in this. Oh, and Mr Hartnett - he now works as a tax consultant for Deloitte!

  11. Robert Grant

    HMRC=shysters

    How about the law that lets them fine you the full amount for a late return (around GBP1200) even when it shows you owe them nothing? That little law snuck in two years ago, when data storage has got easier and keeping track of stuff is much simpler than it used to be. Absolutely shocking.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ah, fits perfectly

    what once a prosecutor in a Stalinist country said: "bring me the man, and we will find the law to match his case"

    1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Re: Ah, fits perfectly

      You're thinking of Cardinal Richlieu

      "Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre." which translates as "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Ah, fits perfectly

        this is really peculiar! I did hear about the rope (although the good old cardinal's name slipped my noose), but I very much doubt that prosecutor would have been sophisticated enough to have this information, let alone, paraphrase it, and he _did_ say what I mentioned previously.

        anyway, this reminds me of another saying, apparently by one rather well-known Englishman:

        A Staffe is quickly found to beat a Dogge

        I wonder if the cardinal would have been into Shakespeare?!

  13. Random Q Hacker

    Poor Goldman Sachs

    Shame on all you terrorist working class, trying to get Goldman Sachs to pay your commoner taxes. Next time you see them in the street, you ought to throw your spare change at them and beg them not to pay any more taxes.

  14. bigtimehustler

    So presumably taking this deal into consideration, how much tax I pay should be considered up for negotiation, when they send a letter with a figure on it suggesting I pay, I can try and enter into a negotiation with them over how much i'm really willing to pay. Using this case as a precedent for such a negotiation being possible. When they take me to court for non payment I can just say that I was still awaiting their response to my offer, as per the Goldman case.

    1. Ted Treen
      Devil

      To much hassle...

      ...just have a friendly chat with Hartnett over lunch, like Vodafone did.

    2. 's water music

      The more you owe

      how much tax I pay should be considered up for negotiation

      It's like bad bank loans:

      I have an outstanding tax liability of GBP10,000=I may have a problem.

      I have an outstanding tax liability of GBP10,000000=HMRC may have a problem

  15. This post has been deleted by its author

  16. NogginTheNog

    Negotiable tax payments

    Your (and my) tax affairs are very straightforward, easy to understand, easy to determine liability, therefore not easy to avoid.

    Big global accounting firms, in fact big global firms full-stop, have very very convoluted labyrinthine affairs (probably deliberately) which makes working out liabilities very very difficult, and open to lots of arguments. Hence HMRC will sometimes decide it's better to cut a deal and say "give us £Xm" than to try and work it all out. Of course that then opens up the opportunities for abuse and corruption.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Negotiable tax payments

      I know it sounds wrong that large organisations negotiate their tax, but if it would take HMRC years of man power to work out the correct tax, it's more cost effective to negotiate.

      My gripe is that different tax offices have different rules. A company similar to ours (we're both UK focused), based in a different town (and hence having a different tax office) has completely different tax rules to us. When the tax offices are questioned about the difference, we get told "That's the way we do it here"

    2. visionthing
      Facepalm

      Re: Negotiable tax payments

      "Big global accounting firms, in fact big global firms full-stop, have very very convoluted labyrinthine affairs (probably deliberately) which makes working out liabilities very very difficult, and open to lots of arguments. Hence HMRC will sometimes decide it's better to cut a deal and say "give us £Xm" than to try and work it all out. "

      So simply charge them an extra sum if it takes too long to work out their tax liabilities, for every extra convolution they add, add an extra 1% to the final tax figure, I think you would soon find the tax affairs smoothed out and made as easy as possible. If not simply increase the % multiplier.

      1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

        Re: Negotiable tax payments

        So simply charge them an extra sum if it takes too long to work out their tax liabilities

        How to you differentiate between companies being awkward to try to reduce their tax liabilities, and headaches caused by the ever increasing complexity of the tax system?

  17. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    It's for our own good

    You have nowhere to hide if you have something to fear!

    Ah, wait, did I get that right?

  18. All names Taken
    Pint

    Reasoned?

    I suppose we all have a need to vent and now that i have vented I wondered:

    What happened to the individuals taking HMRC decisions

    Were decisions made inline with their remits and rank

    What happened to individuals taking prosecution of whistleblower forward

    How many people does this make as being involved

    How many others are involved by say so of those known to be involved and additionally by implication of the data and facts

    How many of those involved received promotion during or since the tax reduction

    How many of those involved received promotion during or since attempt to prosecute whistleblower

    Well el Reg. Fancy doing a FOI on above or even a direct request to PM or the madame with allegedly wet seat?

    PS here is a celebratory pint

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But surely...

    ...you do understand that "terrorism" MEANS "embarrassing the authorities", don't you?

  20. The BigYin

    If they only want RIPA to be used for anti-terrorism...

    ...then they should have written a law that can only be used for anti-terrorism! Even councils use RIPA to stalk people.

    The fault here is not HMRC (although they need a good kicking for aiding tax evasion on many counts), but MPs for drafting a law that does not say what they meant it to say.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If they only want RIPA to be used for anti-terrorism...

      surely it's both: HMRC should not have tried to use that law - even if the stupidly drafted rules allow them to - and MPs should not have drafted law that allows HMRC to use it in such a way ....

      1. The BigYin

        Re: If they only want RIPA to be used for anti-terrorism...

        If HMRC broke the law, then identify the managers responsible and take them to court. As this has not happened, then we can assume that HMRC was within that law. Utterly without morals, but legal nonetheless.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rich

    Since it was her party who fought tooth and nail to make RIPA as loose as a whore's knicker elastic. Law of unintended consequences - or quite the reverse?

  22. Anonymous Blowhard

    Doesn't RIPA limit HMRC to investigating serious crime; like tax evasion?

    Did Mr. Mba owe any tax? If so, did he owe as much as Goldman Sachs?

  23. Jules Pools

    taxing the nations patience

    Am I understanding this correctly, Lin Homer the head of HMRC is pursuing an employee who exposed the fact that the treasury was denied £10 Million pounds of tax revenue due to a sweetheart deal with Goldman Sachs and thinks that this is acceptable? I was under the impression it was her job to ensure that tax due was to be collected and redistributed into the UK’s coffers.

  24. Jules Pools

    Am I understanding this correctly, Lin Homer the head of HMRC is pursuing an employee who exposed the fact that the treasury was denied £10 Million pounds of tax revenue due to a sweetheart deal with Goldman Sachs and thinks that this is acceptable? I was under the impression it was her job to ensure that tax due was to be collected and redistributed into the UK’s coffers.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So was at this at Lord Bankfine's behest?

    Syriana: "In this town you're innocent until investigated"

    So was the HMRC protecting its cosy deal with Goldman? i.e. What was the justification for using RIPA in the first place, and in particular bugging the whistleblower's wife? I'd have liked more background to this story...

    Its all pretty disturbing. The E Snowden stuff and now this. It screams of an elite morphing the rules 'Animal Farm' style to suit their whims. Or as a Clooney says in Syriana: "Gives the listener a sense of the law being written as its spoken."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So was at this at Lord Bankfine's behest?

      Always makes me wonder if they're really so pathetic as to be doing it to protect the image of the organisation, or whether perhaps that sound really is the rustle of brown envelopes.

      Thats the problem with a deeply unequal society; a trivial amount for the wealthy can demolish a principled objection in seconds.

  26. Somerset John

    It is a truism universally recognised that the first action of a politician or bureaucrap is to ensure s/he will never be held personally to account for anything whatsoever!

  27. bigtimehustler

    Even if RIPA were valid against the guy in question, surely his wife has a claim as she has nothing to do with HMRC, does not owe them tax and yet they were listening into her communications when she could not have done anything illegal at all.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The same old story.

    It would appear that this is just another instance of the HMRC behaving pretty much as if it were above the law. Over the years we've had many news stories about the antics of this department yet nothing is ever done to restrain the attack dogs of the Exchequer. I suspect that this situation is unlikely to change, ever.

  29. Frankee Llonnygog

    Margaret Hodge has said she was "shocked to her bone"

    Presumably said in the same tone of voice used by Claude Rains in Casablanca

  30. This post has been deleted by its author

  31. peter 45

    her job

    her job

    Her job is to create favourable headlines in the press, produce statistics showing how marvelous they are ant not create any embarissments for their minister. What made you think otherwise?

  32. Stevie

    Bah!

    And now you understand a little bit more about the knee-jerk American reaction to government granting itself more power.

    Good to know that it isn't only in the land of the free that laws intended to be used to combat terrorism are being leveraged to the max.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like