Thread by @keithmgordon

There are a number of aspects of Mary Aiston’s evidence yesterday before @LordsEconCom that merit further attention.
parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/5b…

I mention two of them for now.

https://twitter.com/RedHawkWinter/status/1339508608770469890

At 15.13.00 (relating to the charge of interference with the Morse Review)

Ms Aiston said: “Sir Amyas Morse said that he wanted advisers who were knowledgeable about tax but it was his ask that they were people who had not had a public position in relation to the loan charge.”

However, the documentary evidence I was sent from HMRC suggests otherwise.

This e-mail from Sir Amyas’s team was sent to the Treasury and to HMRC.

There was no indication that the list was to exclude people had taken a public position in relation to the loan charge.

It was the Treasury who came back with the first attempts to reshape the list of candidates.

And later that day, the same individual offered the comment that someone who had appeared before the Select Committee might be compromised and therefore excluded.

This evidence does not correspond to Ms Aiston’s media narrative, being that “it was [Sir Amyas’s] ask that they were people who had not had a public position in relation to the loan charge.”

Of course, the redacted text might tell a very different story. But, if so, why were the redactions made?

Ms Aiston might wish to reconsider her evidence on this point.

Similarly, at 15.40.50
“We are using PAYE data to identify where we think people have got into an avoidance scheme at the earliest possible opportunity … in this year we have written to about 27,000 people on this basis.”

This early intervention should of course be welcomed. It was the lack of this precaution in the previous 20 years that has caused so much distress.

I do hope that HMRC will be able to demonstrate the benefits of this approach in due course.

However, the statistic does raise a question or two (or more).
27,000 people?
Is this all related to remuneration schemes?
Is the number accurate?
Is HMRC's targeting properly directed?
But let's take HMRC's evidence at face value: 27,000 suspected cases of DR users THIS YEAR.

That undermines any argument that the loan charge has been effective to end these schemes, because this number suggests these schemes are even more widespread than ever.

If not, is this another case of HMRC citing irrelevant data to improve the impression of their performance?