MPs expenses are back in the news. Following a detailed enquiry headed by Sir Thomas Legg many MPs are receiving letters instructing them to repay excessive expenses claims. And some MPs are revolting. That story will continue to unfold.
In the next month or so we will have the report from Sir Christopher Kelly, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which is expected to propose FURTHER changes to the system for paying MPs allowances and reimbursing their expenses. I stress that these are FURTHER changes as the system was changed earlier this year (before the scandal broke) after the Members Estimate Committee last reported on its Review of Allowances in June 2008.
Beyond that I still hope to receive responses to the 25 questions I posed earlier this year concerning tax issues related to the MPs' expenses scandal. There have been a couple of small developments in this regard although they simply confirm the concerns I had already expressed.
One welcome development is the news that HMRC are investigating the tax position of 27 MPs: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8311868.stm
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