Five questions answered on the call to ban “insider” tax accountants

What are "insider" tax accountants?

A report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee released today has called for a ban on ‘insider’ tax accountants. We answer five questions on the latest issue surrounding tax avoidance in the UK.

What are so-called ‘insider’ tax accountants?

According to the report, they are external accountants that also work inside government. The accountants are seconded to work in government to advise on changes to tax law.

What are MPs’ main problem with this working practice?

They believe that the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) can not win the battle against tax avoidance with these ‘insider’ accountants working in the system as they can gleam insider knowledge of the tax system and advise their clients of loopholes.

They also called for a ban on firms being used by the public sector if they had been selling tax avoidance schemes.

It has been called a ‘ridiculous conflict of interest’.

What else did the report say?

It also suggested that tax officiald were outnumbered by well-resourced accountancy firms, and that the big four accountancy firms employed about 9,000 staff a year and earned £2bn a year from their tax work in the UK.

The report said: “We have seen what look like cases of poacher turned gamekeeper, turned poacher again, whereby individuals who advise government go back to their firms and advise their clients on how they can use those laws to reduce the amount of tax they pay.”

What are those in the know saying?

Jim Harra, director-general of business tax at HMRC, told the BBC: “Clearly they [tax accountants seconded to the government] do go back out with some expertise and they do advise on how to use the legislation. We watch very carefully what advice accountants are giving to their clients.

“Provided that advice is how to use the legislation in accordance with the way Parliament intended it to be used, then we have no problems with that.”

What else are the government doing to combat tax avoidance?

Last year the HMRC announced that it would invest a further £77m to expand its anti-avoidance and evasion work.

In recent months the government has come under pressure to do something about the tax avoidance, which has regularly hit the headlines with companies such as Starbucks, Amazon and Google being criticised for the amount of tax they pay in the UK.