Thread by @keithmgordon

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of interviewing @glyn12gh, former President of @CIOTNews.



I am very grateful to Glyn for taking the time to be interviewed. The whole recording lasts 1hr15mins.

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I found the discussion very interesting and believe there was much material we could have covered in further detail.

Glyn was speaking in a personal capacity but his views are probably representative of the mainstream in the tax profession.

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One thing that seems to be proven by our discussion (in case there was any doubt) that tax is difficult in theory and even harder in practice.

I hope that this video promotes discussion. Even more so, I hope that that discussion will be conducted in a respectful fashion.

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Issues covered:
-Matters pertaining to the CIOT (from 2’54”)
-What is tax avoidance? (from 15’25”)
-IR35 and avoidance (from 25’50”)
-Multi-nationals and avoidance (from 34’00”)
-The loan charge (from 41’45”)
-Trust in the tax system (from 1h10’20”)

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I can now add a further few points in relation to the last matter I discussed with Glyn, trust in the tax system.

I mentioned to Glyn that I was unhappy with what appeared to me to be senior HMRC officials giving incorrect evidence to Parliamentary committees.
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I make no comment on whether such evidence was given deliberately wrongly or unintentionally (although in the latter case, I would have expected a prompt correction to have been made).
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Glyn mentions that he knew what I was referring to but had seen evidence to refute my concerns that incorrect evidence had been given.
I therefore made a request under FOIA to see what this evidence was.
I have now had a reply.
It is fair to say that I remain concerned.
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My original concern was that Mary Aiston told @LordsEconCom that Sir Amyas Morse "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.”

https://twitter.com/keithmgordon/status/1339574462635753473

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My provisional view was that this was contradicted by the contemporaneous evidence (Sept 2019) that I had seen.

https://twitter.com/keithmgordon/status/1339574466096017408

Of course, there could be more evidence which backed up Ms Aiston's comments and I therefore asked to see whatever refutes my concerns.

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In response, HMRC have now given me a copy of one e-mail from a series of e-mails dated December 2020 (i.e. more 15 months after the event).
That e-mail effectively provides a script for what Ms Aiston told HoL the next day as to what Sir Amyas had asked for.

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However, I was asking evidence of what Sir Amyas had actually asked for in September 2019. One civil servant setting out "the line" to take 15 months later is not such evidence.
I have therefore gone back and asked for the source of the assertions being made.
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I have also asked for the e-mail(s) that precede(s) the one of 15 December 2020.
HMRC's response also referred me to @Jesse_Norman's letter of 18 March 2021.
committees.parliament.uk/publications/5…
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That too makes the assertion that "Sir Amyas’s request was for advisers who were knowledgeable about tax, but had not publicly entered the debate in relation to the loan charge policy".
Just repeating this assertion does not make it true.
So I have asked for the source.
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It will be noted that @Jesse_Norman's letter was dated March 2021, three months after I had first raised the veracity of the underlying assertion.
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Jesse might not have realised the statement was untrue, but the civil servant who drafted it and briefed him must have been aware of the concerns raised (otherwise why would the point have been put to @glyn12gh's committee?).
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I would like to think that Jesse will be making similar enquiries as I am to check whether or not he has unwittingly misled @LordsEconCom. If he sees that he was misled, I hope he would make a prompt apology.
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I started the day thinking that it was merely a senior civil servant who had misled Parliament on this point. Now it looks like a minister has repeated the misleading.
Of course, there could be evidence to refute my concerns. But HMRC seem unwilling to disclose it.
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This supplements the various tweets I sent last month.
I've now had more information from @HMRCgovuk and I remain dissatisfied & I've now written to @LordsEconCom because I still believe a senior civil servant has given inaccurate evidence and this has not yet been corrected.
A1

Opening of my letter to Lord Bridges, Chair of Finance Bill Sub-committee, with extracts of evidence given by me last December.
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The letter continues by citing the evidence from Ms Aiston.
As Ms Aiston states, "this is an important point".
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I make it clear in my letter that the crux of my concern is the underlined words from Ms Aiston's evidence.
This is the point that Ms Aiston admitted was important and I assume she would agree it is important to ensure that what she says on this important point is accurate.
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I explain that I had wrongly believed there to be some documentary evidence that refutes my concerns.
Either way, given that Ms Aiston's explanations are contradicted by what I'd seen, I assumed that Ms Aiston's views are based on some other contemporaneous documentation.
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All HMRC could produce initially was an e-mail agreeing the HMRC line to be taken when giving evidence. That line was agreed the day after I gave my evidence and the day before Ms Aiston appeared before the committee. It was prepared in response to my evidence.
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As I say in my letter, there might still be evidence to explain and prove the accuracy of Ms Aiston's statements. But HMRC seem unwilling to disclose it if it does exist. However, I now have to assume that there is no such evidence.
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Thus, the current state of play is that:
1)HMRC/HMT did try to influence Sir Amyas's choice of witnesses
2)CONTRARY TO WHAT Ms AISTON HAS SUGGESTED, the steer away from previous witnesses to Parliament was not something emanating from Sir Amyas, but from within government.
A8

Indeed, that is obvious from the contemporaneous (Sept 2019) documents themselves. As I say in the letter, "it defies belief" that HMRC are still trying to spin a different narrative, but that does not seem to stop them.
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I also highlight the fact that, rather than retreating from HMRC's version of what happened, the inaccurate version has now been endorsed by the Financial Secretary.
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As I said back in April, I am not suggesting that @Jesse_Norman has knowingly misled @LordsEconCom. However, as I know he reviews my tweets, I am giving him an opportunity to retract his statement to them.
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I conclude the letter with a reminder of the importance of trust within the whole of the tax system including the constitutional framework within which the system operates.
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Indeed, only last month @Jesse_Norman gave a speech highlighting the importance of trust within the tax system. Unless he is practising the art of irony, we should assume that he meant every word of what he said.
ntia.co.uk/speech-to-hmrc…
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Key words were:
"Public trust is a basic aspect of all taxation and if we’re going to make these kinds of changes that I’ve described, we need to ensure that the public’s faith in the tax system remains undiminished."
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Finally, I attach screen shots of the various appendices to my letter to Lord Bridges:
Appendix 1 - the correspondence with Sir Amyas's team back in September 2019 (part 1).
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Appendix 1 (part 2)
This includes the Treasury's suggestion that someone who had given evidence to Parliament ought to be excluded.
There in black and white - it was NOT Sir Amyas's ask.
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Appendix 2 - the initial response to my FOIA request (April 2020).
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Appendix 3 - the relevant extract from the FST's letter to the @LordsEconCom.
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Appendix 4 - The second FOIA response (May 2021) - part 1 (the covering letter)
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Appendix 4 - part 2
The additional disclosures made by HMRC.
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Readers will have to reach their own conclusions. However, my reading of these documents says:
1) I was right to think that it was NOT Sir Amyas's ask, back in September 2019 and that
2) that narrative was invented by HMRC in December 2020.
A21. END.