Dino's tax saga taken to top

Skipton and Ripon MP David Curry has told Dino Reardon, of The Grove, that he is writing to the "relevant minister" to find out if his constituent's case is to be looked into.

"The matter", says Mr Reardon, is that he and his wife, Olive, have been devastated by an alleged 18-month long string of errors in his coding and a shock claim for £25,000 back-tax which was later retracted.

The former pigeon fancier says problems began when the taxman tried to claim tax for a pigeon breeding business he says he never owned. He said his wife ran the business.

She soon had to close it, along with a spin-off bird feed company, because of the stress caused by problems with the local tax office.

After a long battle to resolve the issue Dino feels he is finally getting somewhere, with his case for compensation warranting a rare visit from a top adjudicator from London.

George Ling, who probes complaints against the Inland Revenue, has agreed to meet Dino later this month.

Dino said: "What I have done is turn the tables on the tax office. They started off investigating me and now I'm investigating them.

"I have been praised by so many people for getting so far on my own. No solicitor in Skipton would touch my case.

"It's not about compensation for me. It's all about getting people to know what I have done and letting them know what we have been through for the past two years."

Mr Reardon said as well as Mr Curry there are several other opposition MPs getting together in a bid to raise his case in the Commons, as a way of highlighting the pitfalls of self-assessment.

In a letter to Dino from Mr Curry's Commons office, his private secretary says: "I have written to the relevant minister to ask whether there is to be an investigation into this matter."

The Inland Revenue says it never discusses individual cases.

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