Richard Brooks | |
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Born | 18 August 1965 |
Nationality | English |
Occupations |
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Known for | Investigative journalism |
Richard Brooks (born 18 August 1965) is a British investigative journalist and former tax inspector. He writes principally for Private Eye, is the author of books on accountancy and tax avoidance, and was a 16-year senior corporate tax inspector for HMRC. He is the joint winner of two Paul Foot Awards, an annual award for investigative or campaigning journalism.
Brooks worked as a HM Revenue and Customs tax inspector for 16 years up until 2005 specialising in international and corporate taxation. [1] [2]
Since 2005, he has been a regular contributor to Private Eye. [2] In 2008 Brooks was joint-winner of the Paul Foot Award for his investigation into the privatisation of the CDC Group. He is the author of The Great Tax Robbery: How Britain Became a Tax Haven for Fat Cats and Big Business (2013) and the co-author (with David Craig) of Plundering the Public Sector: How New Labour are letting consultants run off with £70 billion of our money (2006). [3] With Andrew Bousfield, he was joint-winner again of the Paul Foot Award in 2014 for their investigations in Private Eye on bribery inShady Arabia and the Desert Fix. [4] In 2018 Brooks published a new book, Bean Counters: The Triumph of Accountants and how they broke Capitalism. [5]
Richard Brooks is a digger and a troublemaker who niggles away at difficult subjects in a meticulous, punchy and highly effective way.
— Alan Rusbridger, Editor Guardian. [6]
This is where Brooks comes into his own: not only does he have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of [tax] anomalies sanctioned by the state, he also has an ear for resonant detail.
— Jonathan Ford, Lead Writer Financial Times [7]
Richard Brooks is an ex-HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) tax inspector turned investigative journalist, regarded as one of the U.K.'s best reporters on tax avoidance.
— The International Tax Review [8]
In January 2022, Brooks alongside Ian Hislop and Solomon Hughes presented evidence on MPs' conduct to the House of Commons' Standards Committee [9] [10]
I am a journalist with Private Eye magazine. I write on a number of issues including tax and was a member of the Guardian's "Tax Gap" team that ran a series on corporate tax avoidance two years ago. Until 2005 I was a tax inspector at HMRC specialising in international and corporate taxation
Richard Brooks is one. He was a tax inspector for 16 years, and spent a year at the Treasury giving policy advice to ministers.