It’s only a month ago that Tim Ridley, chair of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority becuiase the latest in a long line of tax professionals I have heard say:
There is no morality in taxation
He, like the others, is wrong.
Last night I spoke at the launch of the Christian Aid report entitled Death and Taxes. I said, when concluding my comments:
This report makes clear to those involved [with tax] that they have a choice. A choice that is simple: to comply with the spirit of the law or to deny that spirit. It’s a choice to be open, honest and accountable and in the process to save lives, or not.
I hope it’s a choice that everyone and every son of the Manse will consider. It’s a choice between joy and grief, hope and despair, life and death. Those are the choices tax evasion and some avoidance present. And as this report makes clear: this is no choice it all. It’s a matter of right and wrong.
Christian Aid are calling on people to make the right choice. Now. And I’m immensely grateful to them for doing so.
There is morality in taxation. Those who deny it deny life itself to others.
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[…] One local attorney, Stephen Hall-Jones, did take up the issue recently in a letter to the editor and he made some very valid observations, including the telling point that he used to believe that there was no moral obligation on the part of any country to impose direct taxation of any kind, which largely coincides with the view expressed as recently as this year by the Chairman of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, Tim Ridley, that paying tax is not a moral obligation. […]
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