Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide a list of all gifts, hospitality or donations
supplied to HMRC by Scientology organisations, over the past 5 years.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Yours faithfully,

William Thackeray.

Dear Teresa,

Thank you for your response to my FOI request.

I would like to clarify my query on a number of points:

1.

You say "You may be aware that HMRC came into being on 18th April 2005, formed from the former
Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise. This response, therefore, relates to HMRC
from that date."

I would like to include organisations which formerly had a separate existence but which are now part of HMRC.

2.

By 'Scientology organisations', I mean organisations which promote,
recruit members for, or raise money for, Church of Scientology
Religious Education College Inc (a US corporation which has been
denied charitable status in the UK).

To the best of my knowledge a list of such organisations would
include:

Citizens Commission on Human Rights (United Kingdom) Ltd / Citizens
Commission on Human Rights Intrenational / Jive Aces / Church of
Scientology Inc / Greenfields School / Greenfields Educational
Trust / Hubbard Foundation / ABLE / Applied Scholastics
International / Narconon / Criminon / The Way to Happiness
Foundation International / Church of Scientology Religious
Education College Inc / Office of Special Affairs (OSA) / Sea Org /
Youth for Human Rights International

3.

You say "I have interpreted your reference to donations to mean monetary donations."

By 'donations', I mean donations of any kind.

For example, a public official recently accepted from a Scientology organisation the donation of a free ticket to a £500/head gala dinner. This is an example of a non-monetary donation.

4.

You say "HMRC does not accept monetary donations".

I am aware that HMRC as a corporate body is not a charity, and does not accept donations. My query refers to donations accepted by employees or representatives of HMRC as individuals.

5.

You say "we estimate that it would take more than the appropriate limit to
ascertain whether or not we hold the information ... HMRC does not keep central records for the whole Department
which would readily enable us to establish if the requested information is held".

In general, there is a strong public interest in members of the
public being able to query HMRC's gifts and hospitality
register. Your response makes it effectively impossible to do so.
In respect of such a situation, the internal structure of HMRC is of little interest or relevance to the member of the
public making the query.

In this specific case, the organisation about which I am enquiring
has recently made gifts to public officials in other branches of
government. There is therefore a likelihood that similar gifts may
also have been offered to HMRC employees, especially as HMRC has in recent years made a number of decisions which
have had profound effects upon the organisation in question.

I am however unable to tell you to which part of HMRC
such gifts may have been made, because I do not yet know the
details of any such gifts which may exist, as this is the
information which I am requesting from you.

In effect your response means that I can only ask you for
information about gifts about which I already know; in the case of
gifts which I do not already know about, I am unable to specify to
which part of HMRC they have been made, because I don't
yet know about them.

This presents something of a "Catch-22" situation in respect of
gifts, in that I can only request access to information which I
already have, and to which it is therefore unnecessary for me to
request access.

I would point out that other public bodies do maintain a central
register of gifts, in some cases searchable by the public directly
over the Internet.

I would suggest that the maintenance of such a register should be
part of HMRC's normal operations in respect of
accountability, and should not therefore be considered part of the
cost of responding to this FOI request.

Thank you for your time and attention on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

William Thackeray

Dear Teresa,

Thank you for your response to my FOI request. I'm going to send this one to internal review, but thanks for your help in any case.

Yours sincerely,

William Thackeray

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of HM Revenue & Customs's handling of my FOI request 'Scientology gifts'.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/sc...

My reasons for requesting a review are:

a) The public interest argument set out in my email of 23rd Feb.

b) Maintaining a register of gifts which is accessible to the public (as HMRC's is not) is a part of HMRC's core functions, and therefore should not be included in the calculation of costs for this FOI request.

I therefore request that you review your response.

Thank you for your time and attention on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

William Thackeray