Last week Guido noted how question-dodging Margaret Hodge was at odds with Chuka Umunna over his use of a £20,000 analyst from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Despite Hodge having worked for the company herself in the past, she suggested that PwC should no longer be given government contracts due to their collusion in “aggressive tax avoidance”. Unfortunately for the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, her shadow cabinet bosses have failed to adopt such a noble position.

In the latest Register of Members’ Interests Ed Balls declares that he  has taken on a PwC analyst until March next year, with their £88,060 wage paid for by the company. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing…

The unwashed hordes who support UK Uncut will be harassing low-paid workers in Starbucks today. It seems like only yesterday that the Occupy crowd were queuing up outside the St Paul’s branch for a fair trade skinny decaf. If you are doing a bit of Christmas shopping today maybe pop in and show some solidarity with the workers…

It’s taken some time but it seems the Labour kickback machine is getting into gear. The dividing lines are being drawn over the whether or not Labour back the Welfare Uprating Bill that will apparently be published this side of Christmas. In the meantime a nice row is brewing over the so called “Mummy Tax”. After granny and pasties, hidden hits are de rigueur these days. A friend of Ed Balls tells Guido this morning:

“Osborne effectively branding mums, taking time out from work to be with their new baby, as work-shy benefit scroungers is a big political mistake.”

Guido is not sure how a reduction in hand-outs is a “tax”, but the issue is certainly potent. Mumsnet will be unbearable today…

Today’s Indy reports on rumours that fuel duty campaigner Rob Halfon will turn to the 10p tax rate for his next trick. Guido can confirm that Halfon will push George Osborne to repeal Gordon Brown’s abolition of the 10p rate, bringing it back for everyone earning under £15,000. The move is inspired by work done by the ASI to produce a living wage through tax cuts rather than wage fixing. Halfon will lobby the treasury to make the move by the 2013 budget, 2014 failing that. A friend of Halfon tells Guido that Gordon’s 10p rate abolition was a “reckless, lunatic thing to do, Robert wants to put that right”. They’re calling it the Great Gordon Brown Repeal Bill…

When Margaret Hodge went off on one about the ‘Big 4′ professional services firms this morning, she awkwardly forgot that half the shadow cabinet have employed staffers from PricewaterhouseCoopers during the last year. Could there be anything else languishing deep down in Hodge’s memory that she needs reminding of? Something that happened before she became an MP, perhaps? Maybe to do with a past career choice?

Between 1992 and 1994 Hodge worked as a senior consultant for, you guessed it, PriceWaterhouse, as they were known before the 1998 merger with Coopers & Lybrand. Guido would ask what her duties were, but she’d probably just dodge the question…

Question-dodging Margaret Hodge had some nerve asking the PM about tax avoidance today, and when she got her phone out to tweet afterwards the irony knew no bounds:

PM fails to answer my question on naming and shaming companies who avoid tax. #taxavoidance #pmqs—
Margaret Hodge MP (@margarethodge) December 05, 2012

Never mind the fact that she still hasn’t answered Guido’s repeated questions about her own tax arrangements. Come on Margaret, what was that about failing to answer questions? 

Somehow Sky beat the Media Guardian to the story in their own backyard – GMG are selling their remaining 50% stake in Auto Trader for up to £600m. Things must be getting really bad…

Of course it was the sale of the first chunk of the car classifieds goldmine that employed the finest tax avoidance techniques known to the Cayman Islands. Guido will be watching this sale closely…

Margaret Hodge told the Daily Politics that she will be taking action against anyone that points out that her  family firm Stemcor pays very little corporation tax on a billion pound turnover. Yet, she will still not explain the exact nature of her “tiny, tiny, tiny” shareholdings worth several million pounds and the trusts involved. Where is our writ? Where is the letter before action? Guido says: Bring it on.

Video via @LiarPoliticians

Margaret Hodge is enjoying her day in the limelight but continuing to dodge Guido’s questions about her own perfectly legal and sensible tax efficiency. The slayer of Starbucks and chief inquisitor at the Public Accounts Committee has been peddling around a Private Eye story that she says exonerates her over the tax avoidance allegations put to her by Tory MP Priti Patel. The Eye claim that one figure used by the Telegraph and Mail was “complete b******s”, but there was more…

Cute as it is of the Eye to fight her battles for her, their whitewash conveniently ignores why Hodge described the valuation of her family business shareholdings as “tiny, tiny, tiny”, and whether or not – as even Polly Toynbee suggests – placing some shares in trust reduces the inheritance tax liability of her children. Guido put those questions to her again last week, but still Hodge is dodging answering. If she called Stemcor to the Public Accounts Committee, as recommended, we would get to the truth once and for all…

To mark the Guardian’s ‘Offshore Secrets’ week Guido has been exposing some home truths of their own over the past few days. On Monday GMG’s Cayman Islands company was shown to still be active, while yesterday a special Guidorama investigation revealed that their King’s Place offices are owned by a tax-exempt offshore investment trust. Guido can now reveal that last month the Guardian hosted a seminar in which attendees were openly advised on how they could avoid tax:

“Guardian investing’s seminar will introduce and explain the principles, benefits and risks of investing and help you determine whether you could be making more from your money, with the aim of helping you achieve your financial goals. During the seminar we will also introduce our unique proposition Monitored Informed Investing (MII), discuss what you could do to mitigate Inheritance tax and protect your estate from a potential 40% Inheritance tax bill and look at how you can effectively plan for retirement.”

The seminar, held at the Guardian’s tax efficient offshore-owned York Way offices in October, was organised by Guardian Investing, GMG’s personal finance advice team. This is no third party operation, the Guardian has approved, condoned and even put its name to helping people avoid inheritance tax. Their high-minded journalists wax lyrical about hiding money from the Treasury’s coffers, all the while encouraging tax avoidance on the quiet. There is no end to their hypocrisy…