THE image of the tax collector took another dive yesterday when it emerged that bean counters at the Inland Revenue spend their spare time snooping through champagne and caviar receipts of the rich and famous.

Staff have been caught trawling through files in search of juicy snippets about pop singers and film stars. Some are doing it out of idle curiosity, but others have been selling secrets to outside organisations.

Now Inland Revenue directors, who call the snooping “celebrity browsing”, is overhauling its security systems to try to stamp out the practice.

The taxman should not be surprised that staff are preoccupied with the affairs of Madonna, Posh and Becks, Elton John and Paul McCartney. The organisation has long been obsessed with A-listers and even set up a special “Celebrity Tax Unit” last year to look into their perks.

Celebrity weddings, in particular, were put under the spotlight after the nuptials of David Beckham and Victoria Adams and Anthea Turner and Grant Bovey — both couples received huge sums for exclusive media coverage, although there is no suggestion that either attempted to evade tax.

The obsession appears to have started with a tax investigation four years ago when Meg Mathews was found to be receiving housing benefit at the same time as a lucrative spread about her romance with the Oasis star Noel Gallagher appeared in a magazine. Inland Revenue staff have not looked back since.

More than 60,000 staff have access to 60 million tax and personal records, but an internal memo uncovered by Computer Weekly magazine shows that the Inland Revenue Board is concerned about unauthorised access, which is not only a breach of customer confidentiality but also of the Data Protection Act.

Tony O’Dwyer, of human resources at the Inland Revenue, admitted: “There have been a number of instances of celebrity browsing or looking up the details of family or friends out of idle curiosity.

“But there is also evidence that some people are using the information maliciously. For example, finding out how much an ex-spouse earns and passing the information to the Child Support Agency or even selling the information to outside agencies.”

The Revenue intends to bring in new rules this month — along with severe penalties for those who break them.

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