Friday 22 January 2016

Steve Lewis - The People's Taxman


My thanks to a loyal reader, who pointed me to this petition set up by Steve Lewis of Crickhowell, who wishes to be considered for the role of CEO HMRC.

I'm Steve Lewis, a former Army Officer and now a small business owner. I'm putting myself forward to be the next Chief Executive of the HMRC Board. It's about time that the Board, that is meant to scrutinise the way our Government enforce tax policy, stopped helping multinationals reduce their tax bills and started working for the British public and British small businesses to deliver fair tax for all - big and small.

I live in Crickhowell in Wales, with my wife Sam, and have run a local coffee shop for 11 years. It's a labour of love for us and a way of giving back to our community. We employ 12 great people, source all we can from local suppliers and pay our fair share of tax. We want to secure the future for our 6 children, and ensure our community flourishes.

The same can't be said for many multinationals. We've just taken part in the BBC2 Documentary: The Town that took on the Taxman and what I uncovered is that while I pay 20% of my coffee shop profits in tax many of the large coffee shop chains use legal loopholes to avoid tax or negotiate with HMRC to reduce their tax bill to 0%.

The playing field is not fair, it is not just and it damages our communities, but this month there is an opportunity to change it.

The Chief Executive of the HMRC Executive Board just stepped down. Instead of replacing her with a lifelong civil servant or someone cosy to big business - the Government should appoint someone who champions ordinary citizens and understands small businesses. That's why I'm putting myself forward and asking you to sign my petition and champion me as 'the people's taxman'.

I believe my 19 year military career, together with my 25 years of extensive corporate business experience, working with multinationals on ethical leadership, as well as running a small business in my community, puts me in a unique position to be a people's champion on the board of the HMRC.
I will have no fear or compromise in holding aggressive tax avoiders, tax abusers and tax bullies to account. Government officials rarely look outside for top jobs like this. So I'm going to need your help to convince them that the public want a new approach to fair tax. 

Sign this petition and help tell HMRC the public want someone to speak for small business owners and hard working taxpayers. 

Vote for the people's tax man!

Thank you!

www.fairtaxtown.com

Tax does have to be taxing.

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9 comments:

  1. Yep, just gt my vote.

    No disrespect but even Ken Dodd would be better than the last bunch of leaders.
    If you got the job, please extend your ethical management remit to ensure that the bullying management culture that has so oppressed staff is smitten, along with that evangelical following of Toyota prescribed Lean and Pacesetter culture. it must work for Toyota though as the Yanks are investigating them for their connectivity and sheer scale of supply reaching the ISIS?ISIL?AQ? or whatever they are called this week (moderate terrorists?).

    Seriously, you would put the likes of the last 2 incumbents totally in the shade. Not sure Georgie Boy would approve though.

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  2. "pay our fair share of tax" - I can't decide whether this should be an automatic ban from any involvement in tax policy, or whether i should sign the petition because it'll be hilarious seeing him flounder when he has to deal with the side-effects and incongruencies of his simplistic philosophies...

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    Replies
    1. Couldn't flounder any worse than homer in front of the PAC. Couldn't do any worse than homer in running the department. Couldn't,............. You get the point.

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  3. So, miraculously and with impeccable, not quite, timing, Google announces at Davos (wasn't Davos the Dalek CEO?)that it will pay back £130m in back tax, 'coz de rools ave changed'.
    Well, given that the tax due covers a period of 10 years, as stated, even by my math, that works out at £1.3m pa.
    Now, even calculating Corporation Tax at its lowest ever level of 20%, my back of a postage stamp calculation indicates pre-tax profits pa for Google as Circa £6.5m.
    As Jethro would say, 'Bugger I, what was the fucking turnover then?'
    Must be some impressive 'write offs', 'loans', 'overseas capitol or research development costs' and a fair bit of smoke and mirrors.
    They must believe we are complete and utter imbeciles to accept this.

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    Replies
    1. Independent analysts have them paying £130m PER YEAR not per decade...another fucking sweetheart deal from the spineless HMRC !!!

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  4. If he agrees to stop the building closures I will sign the petition.

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    Replies
    1. Sign the petition and he might. Gets my vote too.

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  5. Obviously, him becoming chief exec is a ridiculous idea. I reckon he'd make a pretty good non-executive director, though.

    Stew G

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  6. Steve Lewis would have made a better choice for HMRC CEO than Jon Thompson - career senior civil servants are not sufficiently focused or qualified in the real world to see the problems within their outfit let alone have any idea how to begin solving them.

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