A Senior BBC executive secretly lobbied the last Labour Government over the unpaid £700,000 tax bill of a controversial charity which was later mysteriously waived at public expense.
A bombshell leaked email obtained by The Mail on Sunday shows how Alan Yentob contacted two Treasury Ministers about tax owed by the Kids Company charity, where Yentob is the chairman of trustees.
The charity, run by embattled chief executive Camila Batmanghelidjh, deducted £689,000 in employment taxes from staff in 2002 – but did not pass on the money to the taxman.The leaked email shows how Yentob, currently the BBC’s £330,000-a-year creative director, mounted a concerted operation to lobby the Labour Government to cancel the bill. The bill was waived the following year. The message, sent using a BBC email address to nine Kids Company colleagues – including Ms Batmanghelidjh – revealed he had contacted Dawn Primarolo, then the Paymaster General in the Treasury, and Paul Boateng, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, about the tax bill.
Just, …..icky.
Isn’t that a criminal offence? I think if I withheld taxes due to HMRC that the law might be involved. I wonder if you know who will be Speaking Truth to Power about this little bit of tax ‘avoidance’?
A bit more than icky, I think. Two scandals: not paying the “employment tax” is outrageous – either they’re totally incompetent or they’re criminal, and either way their books don’t add up. Who’s the CFO, the auditor? And how does the CEO get to stick around in any capacity?
Then the bland entitlement of making some calls and getting a little help from your friends. infuriating.
(i) Jail sentences all round, please.
(ii) Is there not someway that Keith Vaz could be tied into this?
deducted £689,000 in employment taxes from staff in 2002 – but did not pass on the money to the taxman.
I’ll add to what the others have said: is this not one of the most open-and-shut cases of criminality that the taxman could possibly face? I remember there was a hint of a former employer of mine doing that, and they fell over themselves to correct the situation as they knew normally this results in jail sentences.
Another good argument for c by c reporting. Is RM blogging on this?
It’s theft.
The tax payable is mostly (apart from employer’s NI) the tax owed by employees. It’s their money – regardless of what certain dickheads would have you believe – and the employer merely acts as the collecting agent.
The added lefty cronyism is merely the socialist ideal of equality for all, unless it’s one of your mates who wants to be a bit unequal to earn a few bob.
add in the inappropriate use of public resources (sending personal email from a BBC account) and lobbying from an organisation that is supposed to be impartial.
the sooner the BBC becomes a miniscule strict PSB organisation (World Service, TV for toddlers, parliament TV) the better.
I knew Camila Batmanandrobin would slip up eventually, but I never thought it’d be quite this delicious, or splatter all over quite so many targets of opportunity…
*popcorn*
Is this article sufficient for a license fee payer to contact the Met and report a crime? I would, but I don’t pay the telly tax.
The Mail have stopped all but two comments on the article…
While we’re on the subject of smell, chaps, who is the senior Labour MP who’s the subject of recent allegations of child molesting?
No need to argue about the distinction between avoidance and evasion here: it’s evasion. So the people up in arms about Amazon and Starbucks will be wielding new placards any minute, right? Bound to be.
@ S2
Not even evasion. It was fraud (money obtained by false pretences) – money owed by taxpayers to HMRC deducted from their wages and then misappropriated.