In all The Daily Telegraph has disclosed that more than 40 ministers have claimed of at least £25,000 in MPs' expenses for accountants' fees to help fill out their tax returns.
Many of them joined three Cabinet colleagues in paying for advice from HW Fisher, a London-based accountancy firm which specialises in helping unions avoid paying too much tax.
Documents filed by Mr Thomas, MP for Harrow West, show that he billed the fees' office for £1087.05 for the cost of "making a claim for repayment of excess Class 1 contributions paid in the 2006/07 tax year (£2,021.71)."
The fee, which was paid in full by the Commons' authorities, also covered the cost of "preparation and submitting the claim of Class 1 National Insurance Contributions for the 2007/078 tax year" by a Middlesex-based chartered accountancy firm.
Mr Thomas, who in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform is in charge of championing the rights of consumers, defended billing the taxpayer.
He said: "I hired an accountant to ensure my tax affairs as a constituency MP were in order. As part of that process in this year he calculated I had overpaid tax due to my ministerial salary and the money was reclaimed.
"In other years he has estimated I owed tax and I have made appropriate payments to HMRC. I believed that having my books properly examined by a qualified accountant was a legitimate expense and the Fees Office backed that judgement."
It also emerged that two other MPs - home office ministers Meg Hillier and Vernon Coaker - used Dennis Bates, the husband of Meg Hillier, to help prepare their tax return and then bill the taxpayer for the cost.
In each case the bills for £345 were charged in full to the taxpayer. On Tuesday The Daily Telegraph revealed that Mr Bates had advised five ministers, including David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, on their personal tax returns.
None of the profession's qualification bodies - the Institute of Chartered Accounts in England and Wales, the Association of Certified Accountants nor the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants - said he was registered with them.
Neither Mrs Munn nor Mr Bates were at their home in Yorkshire. Mr Bates is understood to be 59, born in Birmingham. He married Mrs Munn in Nottingham in May 1989.
Speaking from his home in Sutton Coldfield, John Bates, 76, Dennis's brother, said: "I cant believe that he would have been involved in something like this.
"I haven't spoken to Dennis about it as he's away on holiday in Shropshire in a rented cottage. All these expenses claims are disgusting and it seems they are all very loose.
"The whole system could have been better controlled and should have better structured in terms of what MPs can and cannot claim.
"I'm very surprised that Dennis is connected, and Meg has always seemed very nice. I couldn't imagine Meg being involved either."
No comments:
Post a Comment