How Jeremy Paxman blew lid on BBC's complicity in tax avoidance pay deals for stars

In a letter to a national newspaper on March 26, Mr Paxman claimed he had been told by the BBC to set up a company to receive his payments for presenting Newsnight, or stop working for the broadcaster altogether.

Companies House documents show Mr Paxman runs a personal service company called Out in the Dark Limited. Its 2011 accounts show that it received £92,077 during the year, down from £239,411 in the year before.

 Mr Paxman said that being paid through a service company was a condition of employment at the broadcaster. He insisted that the “BBC required me to form a company if I wanted to continue to present Newsnight. They claimed they had been told to do so by HMRC.”

 By all accounts, Mr Paxman was merely following established practice among colleagues in the newsroom. Reports have suggested that newsreaders Fiona Bruce, Joanne Gosling, Emily Maitlis, Gavin Esler, Sophie Raworth as well as radio broadcaster Chris Evans are paid this way.

There is no suggestion that Mr Paxman or any of these presenters are avoiding tax, and HMRC has flatly denied that it had told the BBC to put more staff on service contracts.

But Mr Paxman’s comments were politically incendiary, coming just weeks after it had emerged that civil servants had knowingly agreed a similar deal with Ed Lester, head of the Student Loans Company.

 In February, it emerged – ironically, in part, in a Newsnight report - that Mr Lester’s £182,000 a year, bonus and pension package was paid via a personal service company he owns.

 Accountants were quick to explain that this would allow Mr Lester to pay corporation tax of 21 per cent on his earnings, rather than the 50 per cent top rate, on his earnings, saving him as much as £40,000 a year.