Tax evasion » Tax Research UK

I don’t want to live in a criminal society

Economics, Tax avoidance, Tax evasion, Tax gap, Uncategorized 86 Responses »

Nov 282011

One of the perpetual obsessions of the right wing of politics is law and order. It is they argue the fundamental duty of the state to defend the citizen, and even more importantly, their property from all assaults from criminal wrong-doers. And I have to say I see a lot of good reason for thinking that true.

But they drop that demand when it comes to tax. On Friday I published research with the Tax Justice Network and the Tackling Tax Havens web site detailing tax evasion in 145 countries, including the UK. The UK, I suggested, loses £69.9bn a year as a result. I never once suggested it could recover all that: clearly it could not. No tax system is fool proof against crime. But it is very obvious we could do a great deal more – and I suggested that stopping sacking tax inspectors was the first and obvious step in the process.

What has the reaction been? Tim Worstall, that perennial spokesperson for all that is bizarre in right wing thinking, has given one response. He has said , quoting my paper:

we can see that the average tax as percentage of GDP in European countries is 38.9%. Let us imagine that the sensitivity of currently untaxed activities to taxation is 40%. So, we go off and collect, on the next £10 billion of economic activity, our 38.9%. We get £3.89 billion in tax revenue.

Well, actually, no we don’t. For by taxing it we’ve reduced that economic activity by 40%. So, when taxed, there’s only £6 billion in activity. We actually get £2.33 billion in revenue. But economic activity has fallen by £4 billion.

We’re poorer overall.

We’d be better off just not worrying about what those criminal bastards, the tax dodgers, are doing over there in the last 10-15% of the economy. We’re made richer by ignoring it.

Let’s be explicit about what he’s saying here: he’s explicitly condoning crime. He’s saying we should simply allow it. He says we’re better off for this criminal conduct.

It’s an astonishing argument. It’s like arguing we would be better off if looting were allowed – which would certainly increase the consumption of some. Because let’s be clear – that’s what tax evasion is akin to. It’s looting. It’s looting from those who are honest and pay to support those who act criminally and will not pay.

And what would happen if Worstall was right? Well, of course, the tax system would fail, rapidly, as it already is when it comes to small businesses, where as I have shown well over half of all small companies already fail to submit tax returns each year. So we’d rapidly descend to the point where Greece is. Where the welfare state would fail (as no doubt Worstall wants), where criminality was normal, where trust failed as everyone was fiddling and honesty was but a memory, and where business itself also collapses becasue in that environemnt the incentive to invest, produce or even work fails. You might just as well be criminal. That seems to be what Worstall wants.

He could, of course, be dismissed as the usual right wing libertarian extremist except for the fact that there are so many of them in the Tory party and even some highly placed Lib Dems who agree with him. But medium sized firms of accountants seem to share this view too. In the Telegraph today it is reported that Hacker Young have issued a new report in which they say:

extra investigations and more aggressive stance by the HM Revenue and Customs risks making the UK a less attractive jurisdiction for businesses.

“The Government and HMRC now seem to believe that they found the secret of alchemy,” said Roy Maugham, tax partner at the firm.

“All they need to do is invest more money in tax investigations and compliance work and the extra tax income will keep flooding in.

“The reality is that much of the money that HMRC collects from compliance work is from businesses that feel intimidated into settling or where HMRC is able to outspend a less well-resourced small or medium sized company.”

Mr Maugham said many UK companies have moved their domicile overseas to Ireland, Switzerland and Malta not just because of the UK’s high business taxes but because of the increasingly aggressive attitude of HMRC to tax collection.

“There is a downside to their tough approach,” he said.

Or in other words – despite the enormous losses to tax evasion and tax abuse this firm seems to be saying H M Revenue & Customs should back off and let business get away with what I might call an honesty box approach to taxation. Bluntly, if true that’s another argument supporting what would be an inevitable step towards the creation of a criminogenic business environment.

It is utterly irresponsible of this firm to argue as they do, in my opinion. And their representation of the taxpayer being bludgeoned into paying is so far from the truth it is ridiculous. I am under no illusiuon about how tough a tax investigation is – I have done them. But honest taxpayers also, I know, have nothing to fear from them. I have never seen a penny paid that was not owed. Not on my cases anyway. That’s why this argument is so disingenuous.

Hacker Young should, I think, be ashamed of themselves. All accountants should be applauding a tough investigations regime. Honest business can only thrive on the basis of a level playing field – and that only exists when everyone pays their tax that is owing, in full.

But it seems many want a biased playing field – a playing field where the dishonest get all the advntages and rip off honest business and taxpayers until the point where society itself would collapse under the burden of their crime.

Is that what the right wing are coming to? It certainly looks like it. And it’s something the left have to challenge. Robustly.

EU threatens to sue UK over rogue tax deal negotiated by Dave Hartnett

HMRC, Switzerland, Tax evasion 14 Responses »

Nov 282011

As the FT reports:

Brussels is threatening to sue Britain unless ministers significantly alter a landmark tax deal with Switzerland, in a dispute that will cast doubt over the £4bn to £7bn of expected proceeds for the Treasury.

European Commission lawyers concluded that the bilateral deal, which recovers billions of unpaid taxes in return for protecting the prized secrecy of the Swiss banking system, is in breach of European Union laws that are tougher on tax evasion.

What can I say except I and the Tax Justice Network told you so, often?

It really is time people like the Treasury listened to us more often. We’ve invariably been right.

You can say it’s small beer, but it’s not in the grand scheme of things

Tax evasion, Tax Havens 23 Responses »

Nov 272011

You can say it’s small beer that council tax is not being paid on more than half of the flats on One Hyde Park, the most expensive development in London and maybe the world. But it’s not. That’s because, as the Observer reports:

Only nine of the 62 apartments sold in One Hyde Park – the world’s most expensive residential block – have been registered for council tax.

The ownership of the Knightsbridge apartments, which range in price from £3.6m for a one-bedroom flat to £136m for a penthouse, is now under investigation by Westminster city council, which is determined to pursue the monies owed by the secretive owners of the apartments. However, the myriad offshore companies protecting the identities of residents are, according to sources at the council, likely to defeat them.

An analysis of the records by the Observer shows that 25 of the flats’ registered owners are companies in the British Virgin Islands. Other offshore tax havens used to purchase the properties include Guernsey, the Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein and Liberia.

Council officials are now expecting to canvass the apartments door-to-door, although sources said there were concerns that the building’s security, including its SAS-trained doormen, could prove an obstacle.

The sums involved are, of course, small – partly because council tax is so stupidly capped so that properties such as these are wholly inappropriately taxed. That is not the issue for the moment though: the issue is that the culture of offshore is to be seen writ large here. There is secrecy. There is tacit aggression: the SAS trained doormen are mentioned as an obstacle to entry. And there is the contempt for law that tax havens and their clients show. Plus the complete veil of secrecy that tax havens – or secrecy jurisdictions as I prefer to call them – throw round their clients to help them evade their responsibilities.

Remember, secrecy jurisdictions are places that intentionally create regulation for the primary benefit and use of those not resident in their geographical domain. That regulation is designed to undermine the legislation or regulation of another jurisdiction. To facilitate its use secrecy jurisdictions also create a deliberate, legally backed veil of secrecy that ensures that those from outside the jurisdiction making use of its regulation cannot be identified to be doing so.

So what can be done? Here’s a list:

1) Require that no property can be owned through an offshore company without the warm-blooded beneficial owner being named. If there is no such owner the property cannot be acquired.

2) No offshore company can own property in the UK without appointing a UK agent – and a named, warm-blooded person and not a company at that – being named as being liable to pay the obligations it owes in the UK. They must be proven to be UK resident.

3) In the event of breaches of obligation the penalty should be a charge 10 times the tax owing, levied on the property as a charge with the right to foreclose on the charge and have the property sold if not settled in two years.

That should stop that abuse.

We need to tackle tax havens, now.

This is a small step. But an important one because it shows the importance of shattering their secrecy.

Collect the evaded tax, avoid the cuts

HMRC, Tax avoidance, Tax evasion 25 Responses »

Nov 252011

I have the following on Comment is Free this morning:

The Tax Justice Network has published new research I have undertaken on its behalf. Using data sourced from the World Bank, CIA World Factbook, the Heritage Foundation and World Health Organisation this research – for the first time ever as far as we know – estimates tax evasion for 145 countries in the world covering 98% of world GDP between them.

The result is astonishing: between them these countries lose $3.1 trillion to illegal tax evasion. That is more than 5% of their GDP. To put this in context, that’s also 54.9% of those same countries total spending on healthcare.

The research will, however, be controversial. For example, the findings show that tax evaded in the UK might be £69.9bn a year. This is extraordinarily close, despite very different bases of calculation, to my 2010 estimate for the Public and Commercial Services Union of £70bn, which HM Revenue & Customs and the government have always challenged. They say the figure is only £35bn a year for the UK, including tax avoidance, which I additionally estimate at £25bn.

It is important to highlight such differences of opinion. Across the world governments have paid too little attention to tax evasion, claiming the issue is smaller than it really is. They have done so because like the UK they only look at errors in the tax returns they receive, ignoring the fact that serious tax evaders are outside the system.

That negligence is now costing us dearly. For example, Italy is losing €183bn a year to tax evasion in my estimate. Its total external debt is €1.9tn. If it had only suffered the UK’s rate of evasion in the last decade then its deficit would be less than half that sum now. The same would also be true for Greece, and only slight less so for Spain. In other words, if tax evasion had been taken seriously and been tackled in these countries we would not have a crisis in the eurozone today.

Something similar could be said for the UK. The US has an evasion rateabout two thirds that of the UK. If we had reduced our tax evasion rate to US levels in the last decade we might owe £200bn less in debt now. Alternatively, cuts of more than £20bn a year could be avoided in the UK economy now with our debt still being tackled at the current rate. That could prevent most of the current stress in the NHS; sixth formers would still have maintenance allowances and we might not be facing a national strike next week.

Most importantly though I believe that this reduction in tax evasion in the UK and elsewhere is possible. As the Tax Justice Network’s new Tackle Tax Havens website shows, tax havens help serious tax evaders hide their crime. We could stop that by demanding that tax havens be transparent about the individuals, companies, trusts that use these places, starting with the UK’s own tax havens and then moving on from there. The world’s shadiest places and their users would then come under the scrutiny that’s needed to make sure tax is paid.

We could change things at home too. Despite government claims that they are tackling this issue they’re still planning to cut 12,000 jobs at HM Revenue & Customs over the next few years; job losses that will simply deny our tax authority the people needed to chase tax due by cheats in this country. That makes no sense. Twenty thousand new staff at HMRC could transform government finances and with it the state of our national economy. Tackling tax evasion is in the national interest and in the world’s interest. Now we know just how much tax is evaded a new strategy for tackling the world’s deficits is available.

We could stop the cuts: we can collect tax due instead. That way we all win.

Failing to tackle tax evasion is a choice to support criminals – and it’s one that politicians have made

Conservatives, HMRC, Tax evasion, Uncategorized 22 Responses »

Nov 252011

I made a speech at a TUC rally a year or so ago when I said the following:

If we spent the money that the government proposes to spend on tackling benefit fraud on beating tax cheats then I can tell you this with absolute confidence we wouldn’t get back £1 billion a year. We would get back £20 billion a year.

And by chance that’s the annual investment that we need now if we want to turn this economy around to create the jobs we so badly need – and which would create the wealth and generate the tax – all the tax – we need to clear the deficit.

Which is exactly why we don’t need cuts.

But the Conservatives won’t do this.

And I’ll tell you why.

They would rather the tax cheats of this country have this money than the pensioners of this country have this money.

Better that the cheats have their ill-gotten gains, they say, than the children of this country get the education they need.

And the better the accountants, the lawyers and the bankers have this money they say than the sick, the unemployed, the disabled, the public servants and the defenders of this country have it.

That’s the Conservatives’ choice. It’s a choice to support tax cheats.

It’s the wrong choice.

You know that.

I know that.

Together we must fight them.

We must fight for fair taxation.

We must fight for the jobs of those who will collect tax.

And we must fight so that the honest people of this country can have the money that the Conservatives will give to the cheats.

That’s the fight we have on our hands

And friends that is the fight we must win.

I stand by that analysis.

My logic is a simple one, but one that is rarely said. By choosing to leave money in the shadow economy – which is what the government is doing by choosing to cut staff at HMRC – it is deciding that it is better that criminals - because that is what tax evaders are – have money than do children who need education, pensioners who need to keep warm, those on benefits who simply can’t make ends meet, the disabled who need services, armed forces who need kit and so much more besides.

I make it clear, this is an explicit choice by our politicians right now: they are choosing to support criminality.

They are doing so because they think the consumer spending of criminal tax evaders is more important to the economy than meeting the social needs of the young, the poor, the disabled, the vulnerable, those who defend and protect us and those who ensure that these services are delivered.

And let’s be clear: in making that choice they’re saying they think that money paid to the government is wasted. But they’re wrong! tax does not disappear. It is not a black hole. It is spent! It is spent on supporting these groups in society who need to spend to meet their needs and in paying the public servants who support them. So it directly supports consumption too. But consumption by different people. Tax collected supports consumption by those in need and those who work for an honest living. But the government is choosing instead to support consumption by those who steal to pay for it.

The choice the government is making by reducing the resources to tackle tax evasion is therefore a simple one. They’re saying they think criminals are more important than honest people in real need. And that criminals are more important than people who work for an honest living.

That’s why they choose to ignore £69.9bn of tax evasion in the UK a year.

That’s why they’re sacking tax inspectors.

And they’re wrong to do that. Because in doing so they’re ignoring the biggest single criminal activity in the UK, and the one that’s tearing the heart out of our society and our economy.

And that’s why tax evasion has to be tackled. Now.

Why tax evasion matters so much

Economics, Tax evasion, Tax Havens, Tax justice, Uncategorized 35 Responses »

Nov 252011

The research the Tax Justice Network has published this morning on tax evasion is, I think, shocking.

The full report is here. I’ve posted a summary table of tax evasion for 145 countries, here.

The real question is why does this matter? What’s the problem with the UK losing £69.9bn a year to tax evaders? What’s the problem with Italy losing €183bn a year as a result of its 27% shadow economy – a shadow economy of the same size as that in Greece and more than twice the size of that in the UK?

The answer is that it matters for three reasons. The first is that we wouldn’t have a world economic crisis now if we hadn’t had tax evasion. The current crisis focuses on the Euro. Italy is at its epicentre. It has external debt of €1.9 trillion. If only it had suffered the UK’s rate of evasion in the last decade then its deficit would be less than half that sum now. The same would also be true for Greece, and only slight less so for Spain. In other words, if tax evasion in these countries had been taken seriously and been tackled in these countries we would not have a Euro crisis today. That’s how important tax evasion is.

Something similar could be said for the UK. The USA has an evasion rate about two thirds that of the UK. If we had reduced our tax evasion rate to US levels in the last decade we might owe £200 billion less in debt now. Alternatively, cuts of more than £20 billion a year could be avoided in the UK economy now with our debt still being tackled at the current rate. That could prevent most of the current stress in the NHS; sixth formers would still have maintenance allowances and we might not be facing a national strike next week. That’s how important tax evasion is. We wouldn’t need cuts if we tackled it.

Perhaps as important as either of those is, however, the long term impact of tax evasion. When tax evasion is widespread, and that’s obviously true in Greece and Italy but it’s also becoming the case in the UK too, then honesty goes out of the window. No one knows who to trust. No one can succeed running an honest business. Corruption becomes endemic. And with that all prospects for investment in growth, wealth creation, public goods, our future, the elderly, the young and the disadvantaged disappear too. In other words, tax evasion creates poverty.

That’s why tax evasion matters.

Why Tackle Tax Havens? Just watch the video

Secrecy jurisdictions, Tax evasion, Tax Havens, Uncategorized 6 Responses »

Nov 252011

The Tax Justice Network launches its new web site, Tackle Tax Havens, today.

Watch the campaign video:

Tax evasion costs the world $3.1 trillion a year – more than 5% of world GDP

Tax evasion, Uncategorized 1 Response »

Nov 252011

The Tax Justice Network has issued new research this morning linked to the launch of its new website – Tackle Tax Havens.

The research highlights the cost of tax evasion – which tax havens assist and facilitate – to the world economy.

I undertook this research for the Tax Justice Network, assisted by Tess Riley.

The data used for the research covers more than 98% of world GDP and 145 countries. The full analysis is available here.

Using sources such as the World Bank, CIA World Factbook, research from the World Bank on shadow economies and Heritage Foundation I was able to prepare what I think likely to be the most reliable estimates of tax lost to tax evasion in the world’s most significant economies. This is summarised in the table below. The data tax evaded is shown in both US dollars and local currency converted at 2010 rates.

Country	GDP	Size of Shadow Economy	Tax lost as a result of Shadow Economy	Cost of tax evasion, local currency
	US$’m	%	US$’m	m
Albania	11,786	34.3	982	104,483
Algeria	159,426	32.6	4,158	304,145
Angola	84,391	46.6	2,399	215,901
Argentina	368,712	25.3	24,347	96,902
Armenia	9,265	44	685	246,553
Australia	924,843	14	39,879	41,474
Austria	376,162	9.7	15,653	12,053
Azerbaijan	51,092	58	5,245	4,301
Bahamas	7,538	26.5	336	336
Bahrain	20,595	17.9	177	67
Bangladesh	100,076	35.3	3,109	214,504
Belarus	54,713	46.4	7,718	23,229,967
Belgium	467,472	21.9	47,605	36,656
Belize	1,432	42.9	139	279
Benin	6,633	49.8	568	285,953
Bhutan	1,516	28.7	39	0
Bolivia	19,786	66.1	3,727	25,943
Bosnia and Herzegovina	16,888	33.6	2,134	3,200
Botswana	14,857	33	1,481	9,994
Brazil	2,087,890	39	280,111	481,791
Bulgaria	47,714	35.3	5,609	8,413
Burkina Faso	8,820	40.5	432	217,538
Burundi	1,611	39.5	115	142,376
Cambodia	11,343	48.7	580	2,458,723
Cameroon	22,394	32	1,326	667,237
Canada	1,574,052	15.7	79,575	81,166
Cape Verde	1,648	35.4	120	9,815
Central African Republic	2,013	45	72	36,017
Chad	7,588	43.7	176	88,453
Chile	203,443	19.3	7,303	3,554,466
China	5,878,629	12.7	134,385	896,351
Colombia	288,189	37.3	20,746	39,833,161
Comoros	541	38.7	23	8,171
Costa Rica	34,564	25.8	1,391	698,279
Cote d’Ivoire	22,780	45.2	1,565	787,703
Croatia	60,852	32.1	4,551	25,442
Cyprus	25,039	28	2,748	2,116
Czech Republic	192,152	18.4	12,799	238,571
Democratic Republic of the Congo	13,145	47.3	815	733,053
Denmark	310,405	17.7	26,921	153,991
Dominican Republic	51,577	31.9	2,468	91,438
Ecuador	58,910	32.4	3,054	3,054
Egypt	218,912	34.9	11,766	68,123
El Salvador	21,796	45.1	1,278	1,278
Equatorial Guinea	14,007	31.4	40	19,923
Estonia	18,674	31.2	1,882	22,583
Ethiopia	29,717	38.7	1,139	18,775
Fiji	3,009	32.4	206	374
Finland	238,801	17.7	18,260	14,060
France	2,560,002	15	171,264	131,873
Gabon	13,011	47.5	612	307,940
Gambia	807	44.3	69	1,922
Georgia	11,667	65.8	1,912	3,364
Germany	3,309,669	16	214,996	165,547
Ghana	31,306	40.6	2,618	3,797
Greece	304,865	27.5	29,427	22,659
Guinea	4,511	39	259	1,571,866
Guinea-Bissau	879	40.9	37	18,456
Guyana	2,222	33.7	151	30,403
Haiti	6,710	56.4	390	15,007
Honduras	15,400	48.3	1,212	22,915
Hungary	130,419	24.4	12,888	2,798,244
Iceland	12,594	15.6	788	92,231
India	1,729,010	22.2	71,394	3,262,719
Indonesia	706,558	18.9	17,761	158,070,661
Iran	331,015	18.3	3,695	30,407,146
Ireland	203,892	15.8	9,922	7,640
Israel	217,333	22	16,017	58,944
Italy	2,051,412	27	238,723	183,817
Jamaica	13,995	34.8	1,266	108,646
Japan	5,497,813	11	171,147	14,347,246
Jordan	27,574	18.5	934	663
Kazakhstan	142,987	41.1	16,279	2,401,100
Kenya	31,409	33.2	2,179	176,314
Kuwait	109,463	19.3	317	89
Kyrgyzstan	4,616	40.4	435	20,335
Laos	7,492	29.6	277	2,226,225
Latvia	24,010	29.2	2,040	1,102
Lebanon	39,155	33.1	2,151	3,227,116
Lesotho	2,132	30.5	410	2,901
Liberia	986	44.2	125	6,107
Libya	62,360	33.7	715	893
Lithuania	36,306	32	3,555	9,421
Luxembourg	55,096	9.7	1,951	1,502
Macedonia	9,118	37.6	970	44,436
Madagascar	8,721	40.8	459	922,877
Malawi	5,106	41.8	352	53,176
Malaysia	237,804	30.9	11,243	35,639
Maldives	1,480	29.5	92	0
Mali	9,251	40.7	565	284,251
Malta	7,987	27.2	782	602
Mauritius	9,729	22.7	420	12,714
Mexico	1,039,662	30	25,576	319,696
Mongolia	6,083	17.6	330	416,289
Morocco	91,196	34.9	8,562	72,773
Namibia	12,170	30.3	915	6,466
Nepal	15,701	36.7	599	43,717
Netherlands	783,413	13.2	41,157	31,691
New Zealand	126,679	12.4	5,419	7,262
Nicaragua	6,551	44.6	526	11,460
Norway	414,462	18.7	32,629	202,302
Oman	46,866	18.4	259	101
Pakistan	174,799	35.7	6,365	545,492
Papua New Guinea	9,480	36.7	925	2,295
Paraguay	18,475	38.8	846	3,975,539
Peru	153,845	58	14,277	40,403
Philippines	199,589	41.6	11,707	516,283
Poland	468,585	27.2	44,482	138,339
Portugal	228,538	23	19,817	15,259
Qatar	98,313	18.8	906	3,297
Republic of the Congo	11,898	46.4	293	147,263
Romania	161,624	32.6	15,016	49,404
Russia	1,479,819	43.8	221,023	6,940,116
Saudi Arabia	434,666	18.1	5,193	19,472
Senegal	12,954	43.8	1,038	522,584
Sierra Leone	1,905	45.6	94	388,967
Singapore	222,699	12.9	4,079	5,385
Slovakia	89,034	18.1	4,722	3,636
Slovenia	47,763	26.2	4,705	3,623
Solomon Islands	679	33.6	55	407
South Africa	363,704	27.3	25,518	180,411
South Korea	1,014,483	26.8	72,320	83,902,586
Spain	1,407,405	22.5	107,350	82,659
Sri Lanka	49,552	43.9	2,893	322,157
Suriname	3,252	37.8	259	726
Sweden	458,004	18.8	41,244	290,359
Switzerland	523,772	8.5	13,089	13,089
Syria	59,013	19	1,144	53,124
Taiwan	430,600	25	13,887	423,549
Tajikistan	5,640	42.2	445	1,958
Tanzania	23,057	56.4	1,925	2,854,202
Thailand	318,847	50.6	25,814	776,997
Trinidad & Tobago	20,398	33.4	1,322	8,353
Tunisia	44,291	37.2	3,691	5,351
Turkey	735,264	31.3	54,082	81,664
Uganda	17,011	42.3	856	1,980,582
Ukraine	137,929	49.7	25,844	203,906
United Arab Emirates	230,252	25.9	1,073	3,940
United Kingdom	2,246,079	12.5	109,216	69,898
United States	14,582,400	8.6	337,349	337,349
Uruguay	40,265	50.6	3,647	72,575
Venezuela	387,852	33.8	17,829	46,355
Vietnam	103,572	15.1	3,691	71,972,390
Yemen	26,365	27.1	522	111,618
Zambia	16,193	47.1	1,335	6,573,437
	61,737,918		3,132,490

We know we need to stop tax abuse. So why is it so hard?

Ethics, Tax avoidance, Tax evasion, Tax gap 58 Responses »

Nov 242011

Interesting commentary from Andreas Whittam Smith in the Independent this morning, who says:

What are people angry about? The deepening recession? Yes. The high level of youth unemployment? Yes. The excesses of the bankers? Yes. But more than anything, I believe, people are rattled by the widening gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots”. The banners at demonstrations that proclaim, “We are the 99 per cent” speak eloquently to that. “We are getting nothing, while the other 1 per cent is getting everything.” Many people think so.

And he concludes:

[G]overnments can make changes in personal taxation. They can deal with the hidden truth about taxes on the very rich: that they are easily avoided.

The millionaire who, when his fortune is made, goes to live in the Isle of Man, is a tax dodger. The rich man who purchases a farm for its tax advantages, even though he has zero knowledge of and interest in agriculture, is a tax dodger. The employees of investment banks who benefited from trusts that gave them non-repayable loans so that they could avoid paying National Insurance (schemes that were subsequently closed down by HM Revenue & Customs) were tax dodgers. Making the rich pay all their taxes would be a good place to start in the enormous task of reducing inequality.

Precisely so.

But the tax profession is clearly already lining up to oppose Graham Aaronson’s proposed attack on the most egregious tax abuse schemes.

Will those who support tax abuse never listen?

And why do government’s continually listen to the abusers and not those who want to do the tight thing? Why is it so hard to support ethical behaviour?