HMRC have signalled their determination to go after the rich and make them pay their taxes, the "Telegraph" tells us today. Are they talking about Vodaphone and Goldman Sachs who they allowed to stroll off with billions in unpaid tax? Er, no. Apparently their definition of the "rich" is plumbers, builders, ebay traders and home tutors. Paying these people in cash is tantamount to "diddling" the country they tell us - well they'd know all about that. "Tax provides the funding to run the country," they remind us, "hospitals, schools and everything else," - seeming to forget that the tax that Vodaphone didn't pay would have bought several hundred hospitals and schools. In order for us to do our duty as informers they are providing a freephone number so the public can whistleblow on any plumber of home tutor swanning around in a Porsche or sailing their luxury yacht down the local canal. Meanwhile Dave Hartnett, the head of HMRC, has been dubbed "the most wined and dined mandarin" in Whitehall after it emerged that he had been to 107 free dinners provided by large companies in the last three years alone. Perhaps your local plumber could take him down to the local chippy and ply him with lager until he's drunk enough to provide him with a Vodaphone-style "sweetheart deal" as well.
