MP's Knew of HSBC Swiss Tax Evasion Claims in 2011 | The Guardian

Source: The Guardian (UK)

Tuesday, February 10, 2015 17:50 GMT

Britain’s chief tax inspector told MPs in September 2011 that his department possessed a disc containing records from the Swiss subsidiary of a major UK bank – understood to be HSBC, contradicting Downing Street’s assertion on Tuesday that ministers only became aware of the scale of potential tax evasion through the bank at the weekend.

At the time, the former chairman of the HSBC, Stephen Green, was trade minister, having been appointed by David Cameron nine months earlier.

Hansard transcripts show that David Hartnett, the then head of HMRC, told a Treasury select committee investigation into tax avoidance: “I think the whole nation probably knows that our department has a disc from the Swiss – from the Geneva branch of a major UK bank – with 6,000 names, all ripe for investigation.”

Speaking to the Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop, Hartnett continued: “We have hundreds [of people] under investigation, some of them under criminal investigation, and we are about to challenge another 800. Then we will industrialise the process, challenging 1,000 at a time, with a view to having all those who need challenging challenged pretty quickly.”

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/10/mps-knew-of-hsbc-swiss-tax-evasion-claims-in-2011