The leader of the UK's largest business organisation has accused the Treasury of using a spin in the row over scrapping pension tax credits.
Lord Turner has called Treasury claims he or anyone else senior at the CBI lobbied for Gordon Brown's 1997 pension tax changes "completely untrue".
Ministers say business leaders urged Gordon Brown to make the move prior to his first budget in 1997.
The Treasury claims that Chancellor Gordon Grown had been lobbied by the business group in 1996, when Lord Turner was the director-general.
But Richard Lambert, the Confederation of British Industry's director-general, says his group objected to the policy.
Lord Turner's denial to the BBC came as current CBI boss Richard Lambert said the Treasury was indulging in "spin".
It follows opposition claims that Mr Brown ignored warnings from officials over the effect of the tax change.
It follows Tory claims Mr Brown ignored warnings over the tax change's impact.
The row comes barely a month before Mr Brown is expected to begin his bid for the Labour leadership.
'No record'
On Friday, Treasury officials' advice from 1997 on scrapping tax relief on pension funds was published, revealing the Chancellor was advised of risks if he went ahead.
We objected strenuously to the policy Richard LambertCBI
Ministers insisted that on balance the advice endorsed the reform, and that the CBI had lobbied them to go ahead.
But in an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Mr Lambert said: "This is a convenient bit of spin by the Treasury.
"There is no record of any kind that we lobbied for [cuts in tax relief] and there is no record, because we objected strenuously to the policy."
However, the Treasury says categorically that the CBI did make the case for the tax change in 1996, when Adair Turner was the director-general.
A source at the Treasury told the BBC that the argument for cutting the credits was made to Mr Brown in private, so no record would have been kept.
BBC political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg said that it was a knock to Mr Brown's reputation for the CBI to question the Treasury's version of events.
'Deafening silence'
Shadow chancellor George Osborne said he will lead a Commons debate on the issue when MPs return from their recess.
He added: "It is time Gordon Brown faced the music for the damage he's done to British pensions."
But Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton told ITV1's The Sunday Edition that the Tories had no alternative.
He said: "If they think it's such a bad policy, maybe we'll hear a pledge from them to reverse these tax changes and so far there's been deafening silence."
However, he added that a serious challenge to Mr Brown in the leadership election would be a "good thing".
