Hartnett knocks 'bland' tax paper
Is this what passes for a row at the Business Tax Forum, the body where HM Revenue & Customs sit down with big business figures to chew the fat?
The latest minutes show Philip Gillett of the CBI had prepared a paper on a general anti-avoidance rule.
‘DH [Dave Hartnett] commented that PG’s paper about GAARs and approaches to avoidance had been surprisingly bland.’
Ouch!
Gillett said it had been a ‘team product’ i.e. it was written by a committee (as the saying goes), and was bound to be dull.
A fuller explanation has been scratched from the record – the document ‘had been a “team product” which had [fill the gap yourself] than otherwise might had been possible,’ is all we are told.
What could have been said?