Saturday, December 11, 2010

Britain's top tax official enjoys £6,000 four-night stay at luxury hotel in India... to make a 30-MINUTE speech

By Simon Parry
Last updated at 1:57 AM on 12th December 2010

Britain's top tax official Dave Hartnett has enjoyed a four-night stay in a luxury hotel in India – at a cost of thousands of pounds to the taxpayer – to attend a conference at which he delivered a speech lasting just half an hour.
Mr Hartnett, Permanent Secretary for Tax at Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, flew business class to Mumbai to participate in the low-key conference largely for Indian accountants and tax officials.
He was even joined on the trip by another senior executive, Melissa Tatton, who is the HMRC’s Deputy Director of Business International.

Relaxed: Dave Hartnett and Melissa Tatton enjoy a drink and a chat during their stay at the luxurious five-star Maratha Hotel in Mumbai

The pair spent four nights in rooms costing more than £200 a night each on the executive floor of the five-star ITC Maratha Hotel in Mumbai, and enjoyed exotic meals in the hotel’s restaurants. The conference was described by one attendee as ‘a talking shop for Indian tax accountants’.

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Mr Hartnett, 59, whose career hung in the balance in September over his role in a tax fiasco that saw millions of people being landed with unexpected tax demands, delivered a 35-minute speech and sat on a one-hour panel discussion.
The following day, Ms Tatton spoke to the conference for 35 minutes and took part in a one-hour discussion.
The pair, who flew to India on Wednesday, December 1, also met senior Indian tax officials and businessmen during the trip to discuss tax issues.

Luxury: A room in the five-star hotel in Mumbai costs more than £200 per night

But they preferred their own company for much of the time, often choosing to dine together rather than take advantage of the free food and drink available at social events put on by the conference organisers.
For example, after Mr Hartnett’s speech on Friday, December 3, the pair enjoyed a two-hour meal in the hotel’s Peshwa Pavilion atrium restaurant where buffet lunches cost £30 a head.
Mr Hartnett lists his recreations as food and wine in Who’s Who, and he was named earlier this year in a study by London’s City University as the most wined and dined mandarin in Whitehall after accepting invitations to eat and drink 107 times in the past three years, often with top accountancy firms.
However, the presence of Mr Hartnett and Ms Tatton at the Mumbai International Tax Conference, which was sponsored by a tax advisory firm in Mauritius and the governments of the Isle of Man and Jersey, along with big accountancy firms, baffled some participants.
Of the 502 registered delegates at the conference, more than 300 were from India and most were from private accountancy firms.

Fellow panellists were academics and executives from international accounting firms, and the only other senior tax administrators were a mid-ranking official from New Zealand and India’s own director-general of income tax.

At the same conference in 2009, the only UK speaker was the managing partner of a boutique London tax consultancy based in Hampstead which has only four employees listed on its website.
‘We were very surprised to see someone as important as Mr Hartnett here,’ said one delegate, a Mumbai-based accountant.

Fiasco: Hartnett's career hung in the balance in September after millions of people received unexpected tax demands

‘Normally this conference is a talking shop for Indian tax accountants and the only people we get from overseas are from companies with products to sell.’
In his speech on the Friday morning, Mr Hartnett, who has also faced controversy after allegedly agreeing to let off telecommunications giant Vodafone from a tax bill amounting to billions of pounds in the UK, told delegates that he believed tax officials should collaborate with big businesses to settle tax disputes.
He said: ‘In my opinion, winning tax disputes at all costs is no way forward in the modern world.
‘We are committed to handling disputes in a non-confrontational way and collaborating with customers wherever possible.’
Mr Hartnett said the UK had a ‘customer-centric strategy’ which he said aimed to ‘maximise revenue flows, reduce costs for all parties and encourage customer satisfaction’.
Asked about the possibility of corruption involving tax officials and big businesses, he insisted the UK system was set up in a way that ensured no single administrator handled an account alone.
‘Normally this conference is a talking shop for Indian tax accountants and the only people we get from overseas are from companies with products to sell.’
In his speech on the Friday morning, Mr Hartnett, who has also faced controversy after allegedly agreeing to let off telecommunications giant Vodafone from a tax bill amounting to billions of pounds in the UK, told delegates that he believed tax officials should collaborate with big businesses to settle tax disputes.
He said: ‘In my opinion, winning tax disputes at all costs is no way forward in the modern world.
‘We are committed to handling disputes in a non-confrontational way and collaborating with customers wherever possible.’
Mr Hartnett said the UK had a ‘customer-centric strategy’ which he said aimed to ‘maximise revenue flows, reduce costs for all parties and encourage customer satisfaction’.
Asked about the possibility of corruption involving tax officials and big businesses, he insisted the UK system was set up in a way that ensured no single administrator handled an account alone.
‘I can remember vividly the last case of corruption, which was terrible,’ he said.
‘It was 1995 and the individual involved went to prison for seven years. We have had none since and I can’t remember when the one before that was.’
Last night a spokesman for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs said that the trip had been carried out for business purposes and it had met the bill – which totalled £6,000 for the flights and accommodation – of both Mr Hartnett and Ms Tatton. They travelled with Virgin Atlantic to India and returned on Jet Airways.
The spokesman said: ‘Both officials went straight into important business meetings immediately on arrival and so travelled business class.’
He said the meals had been paid for by Mr Hartnett and he would not be claiming for them on expenses.
The spokesman added the costs involved in attending the conference should be set against the likely benefits of meetings with Indian tax officials and others to discuss ways to improve the collection of corporation tax from multi-national companies.
He said the primary purpose of the trip ‘was to enable Dave to meet senior Indian government officials and business figures to discuss important tax issues and encourage inward UK investment’.
The cost of the trip would be ‘more than made up for by improved tax administration’, he added. ‘HMRC is committed to ensuring the UK receives its fair share of global tax revenues,’ said the spokesman.
‘As the UK’s most senior tax official Dave Hartnett works closely with senior tax officials from across the world and he has brought in additional billions of pounds in tax revenues by ensuring the rules that govern global tax transactions are working to the benefit of the UK.
‘In practice this means he attends conferences and speaks to tax experts and lawyers from around the world.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337864/Britains-tax-official-enjoys-6-000-night-stay-luxury-hotel-India--make-half-hour-speech.html#ixzz17sYI1QmS