Tax workers protest against office closures

Tax workers from around the UK gathered at the Houses of Parliament yesterday to protest against the proposed shutdown of HMRC regional offices.

The event was part of the Hands Off Our Tax Offices (HOOT) campaign organised by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents more than 300,000 employees of the civil service and government agencies.

The aim was to put pressure on financial secretary to the Treasury Stephen Timms to reconsider the closure plan, which the PCS predicts will lead to thousands of redundancies. (The Revenue has dismissed the claim as ‘scaremongering’.)

Around 150 union members were joined by MPs John McDonnell and Elfyn Llwyd in a short demonstration outside the House. The party then entered the central lobby to meet with MPs representing constituencies of union members and areas in which offices are scheduled to close.

There was then an outside rally, featuring speeches from PCS assistant general secretary Chris Baugh, John McDonnell, and Tom Wilson of the TUC.

PCS campaign manager James Davies said: ‘Since the decision was made to terminate around 200 Revenue locations, the economic climate has changed for the worse and the tax gap has continued to grow, enforcing the need for tax offices to remain open around the UK’.

The union’s general secretary, Mark Serwotka, remarked: ‘Office closures and job cuts will do nothing to tackle the £21.5 billion-worth of uncollected tax and £25 billion lost through tax evasion, which could be ploughed into public services and the stimulating of the economy.

‘When just one member of compliance staff can bring in £600,000 in revenue every year you have to question the short sighted nature of these cuts.’

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