Tax-News.com published responses to the news that Austria and Luxembourg had blocked progress on the European Union Savings Tax Directive this week, including this one:

Commenting Chas Roy-Chowdhury, Head of Taxation for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, said: "Europe wide and global efforts to crackdown on the illegal practice of tax evasion is a positive step. However, if the sharing of tax information is going to be used for other reasons that aren't aimed at preventing laws being broken, then we start to get into the realms of 'big brother.'

"It should, by now, be etched into everyone's mind that tax avoidance is within the law, while tax evasion is illegal. If the sharing of tax details amongst EU states of individuals and companies is going to be used for something other than tackling tax evasion, such as a shaming exercise for those who operate well within the law in order to pay less tax, then the EU risks becoming a no go area for the world's business community."

First, tax avoidance need not now be within the law. The General Anti-Abuse Rule has changed that. Roy-Chowdhury is wrong, and I strongly suspect he knows that.

Second, this is the most extraordinary insinuation. What else would information exchange within Europe be used for but tackling tax evasion? No explanation is given: if he does not know that the European Union Savings Tax Directive goes nowhere near big business he is even more misinformed, and I doubt that.

In that case what we have is, in fact, an official spokesperson for the ACCA who thinks he can on behalf of the tax profession seek to oppose measures intended to stop tax crime by the use of complete misinformation and insinuation for which there is not a shred of evidential support.

The only obvious conclusion is that the ACCA is willing to use misinformation to oppose measures intended to capture those committing tax crimes.