A top UK tax lawyer is charged with evading taxes. This is the first case of its kind against a KC.
29/10/2024
A top tax lawyer has been charged with 'cheating the public revenue' after being accused by HMRC of evading tax for nearly a decade.
Robert Venables, 77, is facing two charges over his 'personal tax position' in what is thought to be the first case of its kind against a KC.
The barrister appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court last December but did not enter any plea.
Venables, a former chair of the Revenue Bar Association, denies both the charges.
A statement from his chambers, 15 Old Square at Lincoln's Inn, said the prosecution did not relate to the position of any of his clients, either past or present, adding that Venables was 'confident that he has paid all tax lawfully due'.
A specialist in tax law, Venables has authored several books on the subject, including ones on offshore and inheritance tax.
He graduated from Merton College, Oxford, with classics before studying jurisprudence.
Venables then served as a tutor in jurisprudence for the university's St Edmund's Hall until 1980 and is still an honorary fellow of the college.
After joining the Bar in 1973, Venables was promoted to the King's Counsel, or the Queen's Counsel at the time, in 1990.
He served as chairman of the Revenue Bar Association between 2001 and 2005 and is also a council member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
The prosecution by HMRC is the first of its kind against a KC (file photo)
Old Square Tax Chambers told Dan Neidle, a taxation law specialist for Clifford Chance, that Venables continues to have the 'full support of chambers'.
Solicitors and barristers facing prosecution from HMRC usually stand down or are suspended from their law firm, but Venables continues to practise.
The Times reported that the latest edition of the Chambers Directory describes Venables as 'extremely experienced and somebody you can rely upon to approach things from a different angle to get results'.
His next hearing is scheduled for May 11 next year.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14013305/tax-lawyer-charged-cheating-HMRC-evading-tax.html
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