The Taxman's trips abroad

The Daily Mail this morning reveals how tax inspectors are travelling round the world, notching up some 200,000 miles, to investigate new ways to “raise bills at home”.

Staff from the Valuation Office Agency mocked taxpayers over dinner, stayed in five-star-hotels and even cashed in on a ‘free’ trip to Disneyland.  They were on a so-called ‘fact finding mission’ to look at ways to ‘recalculate bills’ by using Big Brother style databases and surveillance.  If there were any more euphemisms I think we’d start to get suspicious…until we read more of the article.

Apparently government snoopers have taken more than 1.3million pictures of homes to re-calculate council tax bills as well as giving £10million of taxpayer’s money to estate agents in return for details on homes.

It’s like two different worlds.  You work for the government; you get free junkets and the ability to snoop on people’s property, if only to revaluate council tax bills.  The rest of us, however, are left in shock at how these bureaucrats behave.  And what do they say when faced with this:  “When necessary the department undertakes some business trips linked to developing policy”.  Value for money, eh?!