HSBC - more unpleasant goings on

Gets me a day out in Durham?
I go on the Park and Ride anyway so it only costs the petrol to the P&R and back.

Granjura, is this in the news in Switzerland?

What does HMRC stand for?
Helping Mostly Rich Citizens.

Not many MPs interested. I wonder how many of them are on the list.

durhamjen understood..

djem, not in our local paper- and not seen TV news- so I don't know.

Interesting facts about the government spokesperson in the debate.
David Gauke was on the Treasury Select committee from 2006 to 2007, which means he was in a position to challenge anyone who was brought before it. As a solicitor, he must have been aware of what was going on.
If he wasn't, why does he expect anyone else to know before the whistleblower gave the details to his government?

He was also a director of three banks in 2007;
Swiss One Limited, which became
Zhubank which became
Ivobank.
Three in one year? Why the changes?

In 2008, 2009, and 2010 he was being paid £22000+ by PWC, whilst he was an MP.

As I said, interesting.

btw, although we live in Switzerland, where I was born and 'bred'- we have no Swiss income whatesoever and have lost about 50% of our income due to exchange rates since we came here in 2009. We get all on our Swiss bank account either! (so not guilty, as it were).

Well yet another 'Urgent Question' Speaker Bercow allowed that was no such a thing.

I think the papers might be asking why these Labour Urgent Questions turn out to be partisan politics which result in an own goal. There were no decent questions, just tripe, and more tripe. They all buggered off from the opposition benches again after they had got their puerile comments out.

Not the finest day in Parliament!

I think there were some very good questions. It's just that the government did not want to answer them.
That's why Gauke was there instead of someone more important.

You give the impression that Bercow was the speaker. He wasn't. It was the deputy speaker, who was quite good at keeping order.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/agreement-with-switzerland-to-secure-billions-in-unpaid-tax

This was four years ago.
The HMRC man, Hartnett, who is quoted here, then went to work for HSBC.

Just checked- yes loads in the national papers today.

"Not in the public interest" is a phrase that Governments use to try and get out of things.

the link you posted Djen is from 2011! So just shows how long they were aware of it- and were supposed to have closed the loopholes.

The other well known phrase is "commercial confidentiality". It means we're not going to tell you.

What does it mean in Switzerland, granjura? Do you lose money? Do your banks close? Are the papers worried or laughing at us?

Speaker Bercow did not chair the Urgent Question, he vacated the chair when it started to Lynsey Hoyle. Speaker Bercow had to 'allow' the Urgent Question. I did not say he also chaired the session!

David Gauke was there but both sides left it to the underlings. Ed Balls was nowhere to be seen either. Perhaps that's because they knew this was not going to be a productive time and left it to Shabina Mahmood to put it in her name.

There were no productive questions in my opinion.

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/02/06/pwc-promoting-tax-avoidance-on-an-industrial-scale

I wonder if David Gauke still works for them.

"I was amused by David Gauke’s entry in the Accountancy Age financial power list for 2013, in which I also appear. They said of him:

It’s astonishing given what has happened on tax that Gauke has remained below the radar. Now that David Cameron says that the department for which he’s responsible, which is H M Revenue & Customs, has got it all wrong, it’s time he faced the music.

After all, this is the man who has refused to acknowledge the importance of the tax gap, or its true scale, and this is the man who likes to talk about people paying cash to the plumber rather than face up to the organised criminal reality of what happens in tax havens and this is the man who makes speeches to the FTSE 100 group undermining the importance of paying corporation tax and praising PWC’s total tax contribution charade of an accounting system that is designed to confuse and distort tax debate by delivering spin that favours big companies rather than support country-by-country reporting which would disclose just who is and is not really paying tax in this country.

If there’s a man who personifies the failure, in the words of the Public Accounts Committee, of the UK government to get a grip on large corporations which generate significant income in the UK but pay little or no tax then it is David Gauke. No wonder under his leadership HMRC has failed “to challenge practices to prevent the abuse of transfer pricing, royalty payments, intellectual property pricing and interest payments“.

I really do hope 2013 is the year when his teflon coating fails."

This was two years ago. Hasn't happened, has it?

POGS, did you not see Dennis Skinner asking Gauke why there were 3200 DWP staff working on benefit fraud, but only 300 HMRC officials on tax fraud?

Just because Gauke did not answer does not mean it wasn't a good question. Not productive because Gauke did not have a proper answer.

Panorama now.

On Panorama NOW

On Radio 4 today, on my way to work, this issue was being discussed. Someone..did not catch the name... but I believe a current Tory MP said that they were keen to put an end to 'that particular type of evasion' rather implying, by the way it was said , that there might be some evasions they would not be keen to put an end to!

Got that idea from the fact that nobody would be interviewed on the Panorama programme, Penstemmon.

I also appreciated Lord Green, who earned £3m. per year from HSBC, saying that he would not comment on HSBC business past and present "as a matter of principle".

Richard Brooks said that no other crime has been effectively decriminalised.

Sorry, meant nobody from the government.

HSBC should be charged with criminal offences.

I thought he did give Dennis Skinner the figures of staffing levels in various departments.
Are you sure?

I know Skinner didn't hang around long to hear any more of the session once he had asked his question!