“Leave you tresspassing SCUM! Before I set the dogs on you!”

You couldn’t make it up! Haha!

THE DODGERS’ FRIENDS: HMRC boss Dave Hartnett (left), Britain’s top taxman, and Deloitte’s top tax-dodging guru, David Cruickshank. The pair have met at least 48 times since 2006.

HMRC boss Dave Hartnett is the man responsible for cutting dodgy deals with Vodafone, Goldman Sachs and other large corporations that have cost the taxpayer billions in lost revenue.

When we discovered that he was making his retirement speech at an elite tax avoidance conference, we couldn’t resist popping in.

We donned our best Goldman Sachs and Vodafone costumes, bought some flowers and knocked up a fake award.

This is what happened next:

A demonstration took place outside Vodafone to highlight the tax avoidance that firms like Vodafone have been getting away with which robs the treasury of billions that could be spent on services and jobs. 

Disabled people are among the hardest hit by cuts and one of the speakers at the demo, John McArdle, was from the Black Triangle organisation which was set up after the suicide of disabled writer Paul Reekie.

Disabled people suffer intimidating interrogations when applying for benefit and are often declared fit for work when clearly not fit which pushes some of them over the edge into suicide.

The government wants to save money by cutting welfare for the needy yet fails to collect the billions owed in tax by the big corporations.

The speaker started off by quoting an article from political satire magazine Private Eye to show the extent of the tax-dodging and the complicity of the government in it.

Transcript below:

“I’m here to represent a group called the Black Triangle. The Black Triangle Anti-defamation Campaign in Defence of Disability Rights.

I’m going to say a few words about tax dodgers first. I’m going to read from the Private Eye: this week it’s called “Dave the Jackal.”

“Why does accountancy firm Deloitte remain such a favourite of HM Revenue and Customs’ tax boss when it is arguably the biggest tax avoidance drain on the British economy?

A parliamentary question from Tory MP David Davis reveals that HMRC’s business-friendly tax boss Dave Hartnett has met Deloitte chairman David Cruikshank no fewer than 48 times since 2006.

The accountant who appears at the side of some of Britain’s biggest companies including Vodafone, when they have a big tax dispute to resolve with Britain’s top taxman, was described by Hartnett to a parliamentary committee in March as one of Britain’s leading tax accountants.

What the urbane Cruikshank actually leads in is tax-dodging.

Before stepping up to run the UK firm in 2007, he was from 1998 in charge of its tax division.

Achievements in this period included providing the Inland Revenue with tax advice on selling its offices to a Bermudan company under a contract signed by Hartnett himself.

And Cruikshank was named in a government report as the advisor behind the tax avoidance at MG Rover when it was run by the Phoenix Four directors who have now accepted long disqualification.

Britain’s leading tax accountant can also take credit for the abortive Project Slag, designed to dodge 100 million pounds and earn Deloitte 10 million pounds, and Project Aircraft under which the car company started leasing aircraft to Thomson Travel purely to soak up tax allowances with the help of Barclay’s bank.

Under Cruikshank, the firm’s tax division, a tribunal recently exposed, also ran a £140 million scheme for bankers from Deutsche Bank to dodge tax on their bonuses via a Cayman Islands share scheme. Such scheming is commonplace throughout the tax world and HMRC contrive to keep it, as much of it as possible secret, but Private Eye have now learned of a new high value scam being punted around by none other than Deloitte.

Known as derivative derecognition scheme, it involves a company entering into a swap contract which has income and expense elements then issuing special shares to its parent company that make the income element magically disappear for tax purposes. Since this exploits tax laws that industry specifically asked for to help investment, even a member of the tax industry told Private Eye: “it really is taking the piss.”

Deloitte said “We cannot comment publicly on any client matters although we meet all disclosure requirements to HMRC.”

One perhaps for the two Daves to chew over at their next cosy chat.

“Keeping its focus on the little people rather than the behemoths, HMRC will soon start spying on taxpaying via the internet to try to identify people making money on the side. Web robots and crawlers – bits of data analysis software code – will systematically search through websites looking for key words. The idea is to find the teched-up Del Boys who aren’t paying enough income tax or VAT when they make nice little earners on eBay and elsewhere.”

Get this: “Meanwhile the Revenue has told staff” – and these are PCS workers who are on strike today – “the Revenue has told staff that senior officials at the level required to investigate the complex tax-dodging ruses of large companies and rich individuals will be cut by another 400.

The president of their union (ARC) Graham Black said: “the government is letting big business off the hook and acting like an unhinged Robin Hood taking from the poor and giving to the rich.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, what is going on in our country today – the £120 billion tax gap of unpaid taxes that are owed to us the general public by these corporations, is nothing short of theft!“

The banners of other disability campaign groups such as the Save the Accord could also be seen at the demo.