Richard Brooks (journalist)

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]

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]

• 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.

• Corporate tax haven
• Base erosion and profit shifting
• Feargal O'Rourke
• Tax Justice Network
• Matheson (law firm)
• Ireland as a tax haven

• Richard Brooks: Guardian