Richard_Brooks_(journalist) Knowpia

Richard Brooks
Richard Brooks
Born	18 August 1965 (age 58)
Nationality	English
Occupations	Author; Investigative Journalist;
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.

Career edit

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]

With Nick Wallis, he co-authored Private Eye's extensive report on the British Post Office scandal, "Justice Lost In The Post".^[9]

In January 2022, Brooks alongside Ian Hislop and Solomon Hughes presented evidence on MPs' conduct to the House of Commons' Standards Committee^[10]^[11]

Bibliography edit

Craig, David; Brooks, Richard (2006). Plundering the Public Sector: How New Labour are Letting Consultants run off with GBP70 billion of our Money. Constable. ISBN 978-1845293741.

Brooks, Richard (2014). The Great Tax Robbery: How Britain Became a Tax Haven for Fat Cats and Big Business. One World. ISBN 978-1780743714.

Brooks, Richard (2018). Bean Counters: The Triumph of Accountants and how they broke Capitalism. Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1786490285.

References edit

^ "The principles of tax policy: Written evidence submitted by Richard Brooks". Parliament U.K. 21 January 2011. 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
^ ^a ^b "Private Eye and public scandals". BBC News. 14 October 2011. Richard Brooks is one. He was a tax inspector for 16 years, and spent a year at the Treasury giving policy advice to ministers.
^ "Curtis Brown". www.curtisbrown.co.uk.
^ "Paul Foot Award 2014", Private Eye, No. 1386, 20 February 2015, p10
^ "The Triumph of the Accountants by Richard Brooks — who guards the guards?". Financial Times. 5 June 2018.
^ "The Paul Foot Award 2008". Private Eye. Retrieved 14 February 2015.
^ "All Carrot and no Stick". Financial Times. 22 March 2013.
^ "Richard Brooks". ITR. 11 December 2013.
^ Brooks, Richard; Wallis, Nick (May 2020). "Justice Lost In The Post" (PDF). Private Eye. Retrieved 10 April 2024.
^ "Ian Hislop Tears Into MPs Over Sleaze, Second Jobs And Lobbying". HuffPost UK. 25 January 2022.
^ "Standards Committee announce new evidence sessions on reform of Code of Conduct for MPs". Parliament. Retrieved 29 January 2022.