UKIP economic spokesman Godfrey Bloom has gone after Margaret Hodge, demanding that HMRC “investigate unanswered questions from C4 News, Sky News and Guido Fawkes about her ‘knowledge’ of the tax affairs of her family trust”:

“It beggars belief that Hodge stated that her family company paid ‘every penny’ of the tax it owed although later she admitted that did not know how much tax it actually paid. Yet, this woman is chairman of the House of Commons Public Affairs Committee. Hodge comes in at No 15 on the Times’ Politicians Rich List, with a mere £18m tied up on the family business, which is in a family trust so there is no inheritance tax to pay.  One rule them and one for the rest of the plebs?  I call on HMRC to investigate.”

Always one to help expose tax hypocrisy, here are a few questions HMRC should ask:

• Why Hodge claimed that “I am a tiny, tiny, tiny shareholder” in Stemcor when her direct shareholding is worth £1.8 million.
• Why Hodge holds several million pounds more worth of Stemcor shareholdings in trusts.
• For what purpose Hodge holds these shareholdings in trusts other than to reduce the risk of a future tax liability.

As Hodge the Dodge said herself last week, “I think what we are going to have to do is order somebody to come who can give us answers to the questions…”

Compare and contrast Margaret Hodge’s holier-than-thou hectoring for not answering questions with her own non-answers in her Kay Burley interview yesterday. Here is Hodge berating Amazon’s Andrew Cecil at the Public Accounts Committee:

“Well, I think what we are going to have to do is order somebody to come who can give us answers to the questions we ask. We will order somebody to appear before us who does that. It is just not acceptable. I don’t know what you take us for, but we need proper answers to perfectly proper questions, which are trying to establish the economic activity in this country, and therefore what would be a reasonable corporation tax due. That is our job. The idea that you come here and simply do not answer the questions, and pretend ignorance, is just not on. It is awful… I cannot believe you have come without the information-or they have deliberately sent you. We will order somebody who can answer the questions, in public… Dear, dear. Well, we will have to come back to this.”

And here is Hodge’s humiliating exchange on SkyNews yesterday:

MH: I’m not, I’m not, I told you, I’m not, I haven’t, you know I don’t have any dealings with the company day to day.

KB: But you did say that you were confident that every penny that should be paid in tax has been paid in tax. You’ve obviously looked into it?

MH: Yes, I’m confident.

KB: And 0.01% is enough?

MH: No it isn’t 0.01, it’s what they pay, what they pay, the profits they make on the business they transact in the UK.

KB: And how much is that as a percentage of tax?

MH: I, I, I mean I can’t give you that answer.

KB: But you did say that every penny has been paid in tax so presumably you have the figures?

MH: Sorry?

KB: You did say that every penny they should pay in tax has been paid…

MH: I, I also said to you I don’t work for that business. I’m a shareholder. I think you should ask the company if you have any questions.

“Dear, dear. We will have to come back to this”…

All credit to Krishnan Guru-Murthy for asking the questions that Guido has been trying to get answered by Margaret Hodge for some time. Persisting even when Hodge threw up a smoke screen about the Telegraph apologising when it screwed up reporting the issues. You be the judge as to how credible you find Margaret Hodge’s answers…

Any tax lawyers who wish to anonymously comment, please do so in the comments or email Guido.Fawkes@order-order.com.

Margaret Hodge got the full Kay Burley treatment this afternoon. After a day of grandstanding at her committee, she was left spluttering about her 0.01% tax bill. Hodge had the nerve to bring up the newspapers who retracted their own stories about Hodge and tax. She has never asked for a retraction from Guido for the stories that appeared on this blog, nor has she answered our questions about her family’s use of trusts…

Read Guido’s stories and unanswered questions here.

Margaret Hodge has confessed to having her phone in her hand when she knocked a cyclist off his bike, as Guido reported this morning:

“Mrs Hodge had parked her car and the engine was switched off. As she was getting out of the vehicle she struck a cyclist with the car door. She acknowledges that the accident was completely her fault and that she should have been more careful, which she will be in future. She apologised profusely to the cyclist, who was unharmed. They shook hands before he went on his way. Mrs Hodge had her mobile phone in her hand as she left the car but was not using it.”

Presumably she was about to phone her accountant…

Forget the questions about her tax affairs, here’s one Margaret Hodge didn’t dodge. Labour’s holier-than-thou Public Accounts Committee chairman has been accused of knocking over a cyclist in her car, while opening the door, with her mobile in her hand. Hodge strongly denies being on the phone when the incident happened, though she confesses she did have her mobile in her hand. Mysteriously a witness video by local Tory  by-election candidate Paul Ayer confronting Hodge has been pulled from YouTube this morning and a local news site has been silenced. First Harriet Harman, now Hodge, what is it with Labour’s limousine class?

UPDATE: Tory MP Philip Davies tells Guido: “To avoid any confusion Margaret Hodge should make a statement and clear up exactly what happened.”

Some strong words from Margaret Hodge and the Public Accounts Committee as they release their report on tax avoidance today. Apparently the Big 4 accountancy firms have an “unhealthily cosy relationship with government”, saying it creates a “ridiculous conflict of interest”. Readers will know of Hodge’s great expertise in this area, given that she worked for one of them, Pricewaterhouse, before she became an MP. Not to mention that Hodge’s friends on the frontbench such as Chuka, Balls and Rachel Reeves have all had PwC analysts on their payroll. Guido can reveal that Labour’s Shadow Treasury ministers Chris Leslie and Cathy Jamieson also currently have PwC employees working in their offices. For some reason Hodge hasn’t said anything about this, you might say, cosy relationship, but then she has form for keeping quiet about awkward questions…

UPDATE: Hodge comes in at number 15 on the Times’ Politicians Rich List (£) this morning with a mere £18 million fortune largely tied up in the family Stemcor steel trading business. She told  Michael Crick “I am a tiny, tiny, tiny shareholder”, an 8-figure shareholding is hardly what Guido would call ”tiny”. Her shareholding is via family trusts which have the advantage that they won’t be subject to inheritance tax. Cunning.

Margaret Hodge rightly criticises parliament’s long recesses today and accuses MPs of not working hard:

‘Members of the public would be forgiven for thinking that it is MPs who are lazy and that it is Parliament that is failing to provide good value for money.’

Yet, like with so many of her other headline grabbing wheezes, she fails to practice what she preaches. So, does she show up much herself, when the House is sitting? It would appear not from the data:

Has spoken in 9 debates in the last year:
- well below average amongst MPs.

Has received answers to 1 written question in the last year:
-well below average amongst MPs.

Has voted in 60.86% of votes in this Parliament with this affiliation:
-well below average amongst MPs.

Below average “value for money”…

Tax dodgers need to be “named and shamed” by HMRC says the Public Accounts Committee chaired by Margaret Hodge. “We’ve got to simplify our tax system and I think naming and shaming not just of the sort-of Jimmy Carrs, but of these providers, these whizz kids, so that we know who they are, is powerful“. Her Committee reports that there is a  “game of cat and mouse and HMRC is losing”.

Well some fat cats put their shareholdings in family trusts to avoid inheritance taxes. Fat cats like Margaret Hodge…

The company share register for Stemcor shows that Hodge holds several million pounds worth of shareholdings in trusts, including for members of her family. Her family’s firm Stemcor confirmed that she has “shares held in trust or in her children’s names”. As Polly Toynbee helpfully explained, this is a clever way of minimising future inheritance tax liability:

“The big sell is trusts, special ones devised for this company’s clients, guaranteed to protect almost all your wealth from inheritance tax. They are right, it can be done easily. Put all moveables and all cash and investments into a discretionary trust, and it passes to your heirs without tax as soon as you die, not even waiting for probate. It counts as a gift so the beneficiaries need pay no tax either.”

Guido has challenged Hodge repeatedly over the last few months to explain the purpose of placing her Stemcor shareholdings in a trust other than to reduce the future inheritance tax liability of her relatives. She has yet to reply – what a shame…

See also: Hodge the Dodge Hypocrisy in Full

Last night Guido’s twitter campaign to force Margaret Hodge into answering our tax questions saw hundreds of readers demand a response from the question-dodging MP. Under the hashtag #HodgeTheDodge, hundreds of tweeters flooded the Public Accounts Committee chair’s Twitter account with questions about her Stemcor shareholdings. The people have spoken, now it is up to Hodge to answer them. Guido will be waiting. In the meantime you can continue to keep up the pressure by clicking here…

See also:

• Why Guido Won’t Be Apologising to Hodge the Dodge
• Bring It On Hodge
• Margaret Hodge’s Multi-Million Pound Stemcor Trusts