Goldman Sachs let off paying £10m interest on failed tax avoidance scheme

Leaked documents show top tax official shook hands last year on secret settlement described by sources as a 'cock-up'

Britain's tax authorities have given Goldman Sachs an unusual and generous Christmas present, leaked documents reveal. In a secret London meeting last December with the head of Revenue, the wealthy Wall Street banking firm was forgiven £10m interest on a failed tax avoidance scheme.

HM Revenue and Customs sources admit privately that the interest-free deal is "a cock-up" by officials, but refuse to say who was responsible.

Documents leaked to Private Eye magazine and published in full by the Guardian record that Britain's top tax official, HMRC's permanent secretary Dave Hartnett, personally shook hands on a secret settlement last December.

Hartnett is due to be questioned on Wednesday by the Commons public accounts committee. The leaked documents suggest that a previous PAC chairman, Edward Leigh, was misled when he was told it was illegal to reveal details of such cases to parliament.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/11/goldman-sachs-interest-tax-avoidance

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And they (Wall Street and Politicians) wonder why people might be feeling like they are being robbed blind.

And the IRS was on is in under two months. The difference would have been something like $2,300.

These fuckers try to cheat their taxes, get caught, and get a waiver of ten-fuckin'-million pounds (pounds, mind you!).

They are fucking thieves. Outright, Treasury looting thieves and their embezzler buddies in the governments.

‘No additional penalty’
By the time the bank lost the technical point in a tax tribunal last year, it should have received a national insurance bill for more than £23m plus interest going back 12 years and approaching the same amount again. Instead, noted the lawyers, it was “clear that the proposed settlement gave GS no additional penalty for having resisted for five more years, including as explained raking every conceivable point in the tribunal, and putting up a ‘stooge’ witness when Mr Housden was the obvious person to answer questions”.

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=hp_sauce&issue=1298&GUID=171

Latest issue here ; http://www.private-eye.co.uk/