July 24, 2009
From this week's Private Eye (and who did take out a subscription for me? It arrives every fortnight at the office, addressed to "Saint Justin of Dunn"?)
MORE on those searching tax investigations by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) into MPs - such as they are.
As reported in Eye 1239, the number of MPs facing enquiries into their tax returns, which would include the most trivial query, has fallen in recent years to just 32 last year.
But even these barely scratch the surface of the dubious expense claims and un-receipted allowances that have been pocketed by hundreds of honorable members.
Of 32 investigations, 22 resulted in further tax of between £0 and £999 (apparently, giving the actuall amounts would have compromised MPs anonymity!); five of between £1,000 and £1,999; and another five of up to £5,999.
If this is all that has been recovered - and it will include extra tax due on income or disallowed expenses unrelated to parliamentary duties - it looks as if the taxman has simply accepted that payments cleared by parliament's fees office weren't taxabke, despite their vast divergence from the tax rules for allowable expenses.
Not that you would guessed this from the appearance of HMRC boss Dave Hartnett before the inquiry by standards commissioner Christopher Kelly into MPs' expenses a fortnight ago, when Hartnett explained: "We are testing all the time the expenses of members of parliament, as we do for other groups of people."
Yeah, right.
