WTF!?!

Thanks to the Thought Gang in the comments here, this.

The personal financial data of millions of taxpayers could be sold to private firms under laws being drawn up by HM Revenue & Customs in a move branded “dangerous” by tax professionals and “borderline insane” by a senior Conservative MP.

I… Er… No, really, I’m speechless. There are no words to describe the sheer anger that I feel towards these thieving cunts. How fucking dare they, the vile conniving, contemptible, larcenous mountebanks.

Despite fears that it could jeopardise the principle of taxpayer confidentiality, the legislation would allow HMRC to release anonymised tax data to third parties including companies, researchers and public bodies where there is a public benefit. According to HMRC documents, officials are examining “charging options”.

Ah, yes, the old “for the common good” canard, the well-worn trope of the vile socialist who thinks that the collective is more important than the individuals who make it up. And as for charging options, my word. They steal our money and then piss it up the wall. As if that isn’t bad enough, they want to charge their mates for the privilege of poking about in our financial affairs – and you can be damned sure that anonymous won’t be anonymous for very long. It is our information and these evil cunts what to make money off it. No, if there is a charge to be made, we should be doing the charging – we, the taxpayer, their employers, to whom they should come crawling, cap in hand, begging for our permission to release the information to third parties and pay us handsomely if we agree. My fees will start at a nice round £100,000 per byte.

The government insists that there will be suitable safeguards on personal data.

As Mandy Rice Davies would have said, “well, they would, wouldn’t they?” And we believe, them, don’t we, children?

HMRC’s chequered record on data is likely to come under scrutiny given historical scandals involving the loss of personal information about 25 million child benefit claimants and 15,000 bank customers.

Chequered record is putting it mildly, frankly. Totally incompetent, lying,thieving scum would be a better fit. If it wasn’t a government department, it would be a criminal gang and facing incarceration for its wholesale disregard for the people who are forced to fund it.

Critics fear the data could include details about income, tax arrangements and payment history and would carry a risk that people could be identified. Even the perception that this could happen may lead to a breakdown in trust between HMRC and taxpayers, the Chartered Institute of Taxation warned.

Well, yes, if that trust had not already been corroded below the waterline.

The Tory MP David Davis, a former minister and shadow home secretary, described the proposal as “borderline insane”, adding: “The Treasury lists no credible benefits and offers a justification based on an international agreement that does not lead other governments to open up their tax database,” he said. “The officials who drew this up clearly have no idea of the risks to data in an electronic age. Our forefathers put these checks and balances in place when the information was kept in cardboard files, and data was therefore difficult to appropriate and misuse.

Once again, Davis demonstrates why he, not the moron Cameron, should be the Tory leader. Borderline insane is an understatement. Criminally insane is more like it. There are some ideas that are so blatantly unethical that a normal, decent, moral human being would stifle them as soon as they were floated. This is one such.