An extraordinary suggestion appeared in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday.

In an article on companies being disgruntled with the UK taxman, an (unnamed) private equity figure suggests that after going to the Treasury to talk about sensitive tax issues, he/she and others were investigated by the Revenue.

The quote reads:

A group of us had several meetings at Downing Street over tax and disclosure. Literally a month later, almost all of us had a 'random' personal tax inspection from the Revenue. It was extraordinary.

Extraordinary indeed. Surely the Treasury can't have tipped off the Revenue to make random investigations into individuals it was consulting on tax issues?

I'm inclined to believe it was a coincidence, though I suspect there will be many tax advisers who would not put it past the taxman.