In his new BBC radio series ‘Untaxing’, broadcast on BBC Sounds, Dan Neidle, tax lawyer, investigative journalist and commentator, has produced a radio series giving tax a makeover. His new programme reports on various stories designed to engage even those who have never given the VAT classification of a Jaffa Cake a moment’s thought.
Whoever thought tax could be sexy? Apparently, that is the conclusion the BBC reached when scourge of both the taxman and tax fiddlers, Dan Neidle, pitched them a series built around my favourite subject ‘tax’. You can understand why, when you read the blurb on the BBC website.
In his BBC series, Dan Neidle delves into the bizarre, brilliant and sometimes disastrous ways tax shapes our lives, our choices and the world around us. The series started 2 weeks ago with an initial five tasty episodes focusing on some of the more egregious excesses that help to explain why the country’s finances are in such a poor state.
Background
Dan Neidle is a tax lawyer, who worked at international law firm Clifford Chance for most of his career, becoming its UK head of tax in 2020. After retiring in May 2022 aged 50 , he created Tax Policy Associates (TPA), a non-profit organisation that advises policymakers and journalists on tax policy.
Amazingly, after only a matter of months after starting TPA, Dan won the prestigious “Investigation of the Year” award in the British Journalism Awards 2023. The award was for his investigation into persistent rumours of borderline legal tax avoidance claims by former Chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi.
Zahawi spent a six-figure sum on lawyers in an attempt to stymy Dan Neidle, but to no avail with the former king of No.11 Downing Street having to pay HMRC millions in tax, interest and penalties. The judges on the awards committee said: “This was a determined and forensic investigation carried out in the face of continual legal intimidation.”
Phenomenal reputation
Dan Neidle is well known to accountants up and down the land, having been a regular contributor to accountancy online forums, such as AccountingWEB for years. He has already built a well-deserved reputation for his own brand and that of his company, Tax Policy Associates.
His first foray as a tax journalist was a thought-provoking piece on the Laffer curve. For the uninitiated, this is the theory, strongly favoured by Liz Truss and her cronies, that increasing taxes beyond a certain point can lead to diminishing returns. The big question is the level at which this effect is triggered.
The theory states that, for example, if UK tax rates were already at 95% and a desperate Chancellor of the Exchequer attempted to push them up by a further 5%, then you would literally be better off not earning extra money. This is what appears to have happened with doctors’ pensions not too long ago.
In Episode 1 of the Radio 4 series, Neidle explained that in order to perpetrate certain ineffective but potentially highly lucrative tax avoidance schemes, you have to be a celebrity. Next up was that unforgettable case in which HMRC attempted to prove that a Jaffa Cake was a cake in name only. Neidle used this case to raise a number of highly pertinent points regarding the UK’s VAT regime, which has long ceased to be fit for purpose and badly needs an overhaul to increase both the tax take and fairness.
Making tax sexy
Having wondered as to whether tax could ever be sexy, we got a definitive answer in the fourth episode entitled “The Porn Star Tax Lawyer”. This exposed (sorry, I couldn’t resist) the notorious activities of barred tax barrister, forger and fraudster Paul Baxendale-Walker.
Baxendale-Walker was the kind of ultra-educated lawyer who gives the industry a bad name, happy to create tax avoidance schemes that don’t avoid tax and deliver opinionated opinions that are not worth the paper on which they are written. Indeed, for many who were sucked in these proved incredibly costly. As an example, one of his schemes bankrupted Glasgow Rangers FC.
All those involved might have wished that Baxendale-Walker had skipped a colourful career as a lawyer and headed straight for his alternative life as a pornographer and star in blue movies under the pseudonym of Paul Chaplin. Strangely, his website talks about “having retired from the law for ill-health in 2013” failing to mention that his premature retirement was forced on him by being disbarred by the Law Society.
Readers can decide for themselves, but Neidle arguably saved the best till last in an episode that featured accountant Paul Rosser, now a leading research-and-development tax credits expert. The duo highlighted HMRC’s lax approach to a regime that was intended to promote innovation but, instead, effectively offered £10bn to fraudsters, with the example used in the programme proving to be both cynical and callous.
Anyone with even a modicum of interest in tax is urged to spend an hour or two listening to these fascinating broadcasts. It can only be a matter of time before Neidle is commissioned to write another series, which will hopefully lead to him transferring his undoubted talents to the small screen.
Accountant’s view
I am a huge fan of Dan Neidle who is considered by most accountants as ‘the Martin Lewis of tax’. His investigations range from dishonest accountants and barristers promoting borderline fraudulent tax-avoidance schemes, to the incompetence and blatant unfairness perpetrated by HMRC.
So, when you have a few minutes to spare, I urge you to tune in to BBC Sounds, you will not regret it.
