El Barbudo wrote:
Regarding Vodafone, let us not forget that the case had already been to court and the judge had decided (under the rule that shifting accounting offshore PURELY to avoid tax was not allowed) that they had indeed shifted it specifically for that reason (the upshot of that being that they were going to have to pay up to approx £6bn) ... but good old Dave Hartnett had a little chat with them and let them off with a much, much, smaller phased payment ... thereby just tossing the judge's ruling aside.
In my opinion, that's not just tax avoidance, it's far worse.
I think there's something under way to check whether what he did is actually legal.
Dave Hartnett is now leaving HMRC, apparently of his own volition, no mention of sacking or anything like that.
It'll be interesting to see what job he does next ... tax avoidance perhaps? (as soon as the restrictions allow ... or sooner if he knows a way round it?).
The whole thing reeks of chummyness.
Don't worry, he had plans in place to recover this money in other ways, he has reduced the HMRC rates for diesel vehicles from 15p a mile to 12p a mile recently, even though fuel has had an upward price momentum.
