Dear Taxpayer,
Tax Relief is back!
The taxpayer’s champion Angela Brooks (Director of Tax Relief, The British Taxpayer’s Federation) went into retirement for 2 years and has written a book: Challenging The Taxman to expose the injustices and abuse perpetrated by the taxman and HMRC. The book will be available in October 2008.
Tax Relief is back in business! Now Angela has recovered from Cancer and has been joined by her new team: Matthew Blackie and Sebastian Boscher.
WHY DID I WRITE THIS BOOK?
I wrote this book as a dedication to the many thousands of taxpayers who have been hectored and abused by the taxman. Many of these victims of HMRC’s bully-boy tactics have endured years of hell. However, throughout their harrowing ordeals they have also run businesses, maintained careers, cared for their families and made valiant attempts to lead normal lives. Their endurance of injustice and abuse must be recognised by society. I wrote this book to honour these victims and encourage others to fight back against injustices perpetrated by HMRC and the State.
Please read an excerpt from the book below:
“Taxpayers fall broadly into one of three categories. First, the taxpayer who routinely and deliberately pays less tax than he owes – either by omission (not declaring income or gains) or by commission (under-declaring income or gains) or by over-declaring costs. Second, the taxpayer who inadvertently makes a mistake in his tax affairs – perhaps because he didn’t understand he was supposed to declare something or because his accountant cocked up. Third, the taxpayer who has done absolutely nothing wrong at all and whose financial and tax affairs are squeaky clean.
The taxman treats all three categories the same. Guilty until proven innocent. Over-zealous, and unaccountable, the taxman frequently lives up to the name “Hector” (which means to intimidate or bully – to talk and behave towards someone in a loud and unpleasantly forceful way, especially in order to get them to act or think as you want them to). Hector was the name used by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in its own £25 million advertising campaign.
The vast majority of people who are “hectored” by HMRC take the abuse quietly. It is an embarrassing, humiliating and harrowing experience and not many people want to talk about it – let alone believe they can challenge HMRC’s right to “hector them”. Because people mostly keep their finances private, tax affairs and tax disputes are generally “kept under wraps” and thus the taxman gets away with abusing innocent men and women, failing to treat them decently.
Only by publishing the taxman’s abuses, and showing taxpayers that HMRC can be challenged successfully – either for unfair treatment or unfair tax demands – will this ever change. When I set up Tax Relief, The British Taxpayers Federation, in 2003, I wanted abused taxpayers to have access to a service which would advise, encourage and support victims in a way that neither accountants nor solicitors could provide.
Virtually every person I dealt with in four years of running Tax Relief said the same thing about HMRC: they are not accountable; there is no transparency; they consider themselves to be beyond challenge and above reproach; they manipulate the law and their own codes of practice to achieve their goals. Getting justice in the form of an apology, compensation or discipline for offending HMRC employees is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible.
In four years as Director of Tax Relief, I discovered that with extreme tenacity and determination, it is possible to successfully challenge the abuses of the Taxman. It shouldn’t be necessary in our so-called civilised society to have to struggle so hard to achieve justice and fairness from a public body funded with taxpayer’s money. But it is, and will continue to be so until someone at the very top has the courage to effect real change. No-one in Parliament has either understood the need for change or had the courage to tackle it – with very few exceptions, such as Angus Robertson MP (SNP) for Moray.
In February 2007 I was diagnosed with cancer. I largely suspended my activities with Tax Relief during surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy while I concentrated on dealing with my oncological adventures. I have a statistical prognosis as to the possibility of living another ten years, but frequently hear stories of women who die within a year or two of diagnosis so am not taking any chances. I wanted to publish the routine abusive and unfair treatment of innocent taxpayers by HMRC, as well as the endurance of the victims I have worked with. Above all, I don’t want the lessons learned through all my cases to be lost to British Society.”
The book is available for pre-order via email at: angiebrooks11@yahoo.co.uk Otherwise please check back here for updates with regards to the official release date.
With every good wish,
Angela Brooks
