My closing comments in the Accountancy Age tax avoidance debate, which has been taking place this week, have just been posted. I said:
Where did we get after several days of debate? Let me conclude.
What is clear is that morality drives tax legislation, tax administration and the behaviour of taxpayers. Tax is a moral issue and always will be so because the law cannot be, and never will be, certain.
In that case personal morality and politics indicate where almost everyone is in this debate. Those who subscribe to neo-liberal thinking that suggests that the right of the individual comes before all else support tax avoidance, not least because this philosophy is built on a disdain for government.
Those, like me, who think we live in a society and have obligations to each other and express that by a belief in the right of democratic governments to govern, think tax avoidance an attack on society, our neighbours and democracy itself.
Thankfully we still live in a broadly compassionate democratic society. And that's exactly why tax avoidance is now being condemned right across the mainstream political spectrum, and will be so long as ordinary people who are its victims continue to have a say in this country.
Where you are then comes down to a pretty basic question: do you care about morality, others, society and democracy, or not? If you do you're likely to agree with me and almost all UK democratic politicians. If you don't then I suspect tax avoidance is for you.
Unsurprisingly, Stephen Herring of BDO does not agree. Worse, he seems intent on playing the man rather than the issue. That's disappointing.
The voting so far is incredibly tight:
You can still vote, here. Itv would be a shame if the neoliberal world view won.
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Shame there are so many accountants who lack any sense of right or wrong
I’ve just voted, Richard, having spent a few minutes reading Stephen Herring’s contributions. I note he makes great play of the use of the courts to arbitrate what’s right and wrong when paying tax. Aside from being an option that convenientyly absolves individuals from taking responsibility for their own actions, the problem is this ignores the fact that this gives those with money an inbuilt (i.e. institutionalised) advantage as they can afford to hire the best legal teams, or, as is the case with numerous cases brought by HMRC, constantly drag out the legal process until some form of so called settlement becomes ever more attractive to the state, and/or a “sympathetic” person takes the reins (as in the case of the former head of HMRC and Vodaphone).
Ultimately though, what struck me was similarity between Herring’s position and many others who harbour similar beliefs. For them democracy is optional: it’s function is to promote and protect the interests of the elite, and when it doesn’t, well simply ignore or overide it, as Slavoj Zizek points out so superbly in The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/west-crisis-democracy-finance-spirit-dictators
I’ve posted a link on the debate to this article https://www.kyc360.com/hot-topics/Taxation-and-Morality-Are-Evasion-and-Avoidance-Two-Sides-of-the-Same-Coin/ which appears to come down firmly on the side of avoiders…
It’s not about avoiders Richard, it’s about the system that allows the avoidance in the first place. Unfortunately people seem more concerned about the symptoms than the cause.
I disagree, Frank. Whether a system allows avoidance or not, we are all moral agents, and we can all take decisions. No system covers every eventuality, and this is easily seen in families: when a child does something they know to be wrong they sometimes try the line “you didn’t tell me not to do it”. It doesn’t work: at least it doesn’t work in my family. It is seen as cheek, and compounds the offence. That is because we expect children to generalise precisely because we cannot tell them what to do or not do in every circumstance. It is therefore rather strange to accept a defence which does not work for children over the age of about 5.
It is curious that many who run this kind of excuse are terribly keen on “personal responsibility” in other contexts.
They are not fools: but they have reasonable grounds for believing that we are……
Seem to be split close to 50/50, which means even if 51% vote in favour of you Richard, a large number of people out there don’t give a stuff about the community/society. Very sad.
Agreed
I note that the vote is now 53% against your motion Richard, and 47% for. Looking at that, I thought I’d test whether the online voting system stops people voting more than once. It doesn’t; I voted for the motion yesterday, and again just now.
So until they get their voting system sorted out you can’t take the result seriously. I suppose, given the collusion of much of the accounting profession in abuse of the tax system, that it’s not at all surprising their voting system can be abused.
Hi there, thanks for voting in the Accountancy Age debate. I’m sure the voting system is working fine. If you keep clicking to vote for the same person, it will repeatedly say ‘thanks for voting for x’. But your vote is only counted once. If you vote for the other side it should say: ‘thanks you have changed your vote to Y’.
It’s something that obviously needs to work properly: we’ll check it before all our debates.
Hopefully we’ll have your vote in following debates.
Kevin Reed, editor, Accountancy Age
[…] called Frank said, when commenting on my blog on the tax avoidance debate on Accountancy Age: It’s not about avoiders Richard, it’s about the system that allows the avoidance in the first […]
I have worked in the fincial sector for more than twenty years. When you consider the background of most of the participants and contributors to the debate, I take heart in high percentage of the votes cast for you. When all things are considered, I think the fact you have anything close to 50% of the votes should be seen as a moral victory!