Protesters UK Uncut and Occupy London combined forces yesterday in order to march to Whitehall and demand the resignation of Dave Hartnett.
The protest started after HMRC's Permanent Secretary Hartnett came under fire from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee for letting large corporates off billions in taxes and lying about his involvement. The total cost to the taxpayer of these sweetheart deals is unknown because he claims that discussing this with parliament will breach taxpayer confidentiality. The matters only came to MP's knowledge after documents were leaked to Private Eye and Guardian, these revealed that Mr Hartnett gave away some £4.65 billion.
Occupy London supporter Kyshia Davey said: "HMRC has just announced it will be going after 146,000 pensioners to demand hundreds of pounds from them following a tax code cock-up. Meanwhile, its boss is striking secret deals with opulent corporations to let them off billions of pounds in tax. Hartnett is fatally undermining public confidence in the UK's tax system at a time of austerity and he must resign immediately."
UK Uncut activist Sam Gilbert added: "Whilst 25,000 rank-and-file staff at HMRC have been fired, leaving the organisation almost incapable of functioning, Hartnett has been carving out a career as the most 'wined and dined' civil servant in Whitehall. The money from Vodafone's £6bn tax dodge alone could have prevented all of the cuts in public services over the past year."
Mr Hartnett claimed that he was able to strike private deals with large companies because no other HMRC commissioner understood tax. He also appears to have ignored the advice of his legal advisers in making the deals. On top of the other allegations MPs have noted that he has also granted extremely favourable time to pay deals with large corporates too.
