In response to my report for the TUC on tax avoidance a chartered accountant I know sent me this letter, received at his office on behalf of a client today:
If you don't believe chartered accountants don't sell tax avoidance, here's the evidence that they do, and that they cold call it too.
What especially amused me was a note on the HWCA web site, where you can find 101 tax planning tips. I'll tell you number 101 says:
Of the two options HWCA are offering, if you ask my advice take the second.
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Why would anyone believe that no Chartered Accountants (or indeed any other accountants) sell tax avoidance schemes?
In my experience one of the problems is that there are plenty of gullible people who will buy into any scheme that is presented as coming from a credible source.
The letter above includes a number of assertions intended to display a degree of credibility. For the moment let’s just take one of these.
It sates that the scheme ‘has been in use for nearly a year’. So it was first used in early 2007 and will be reflected on tax returns for the tax year ended 5 April 2007. The filing deadline for these was 31 January 2008. So who can tell what will be HMRC’s reaction to enquiries in respect thereof?
Richard, you are right, this sort of thing does the purveyors of the scheme no good at all.
Funny how this is onshore!
Nothing illegal about them advising people about tax planning though Richard.
Mark
We agree – what I wish is that our professional bodies would make clear that conduct of this sort might be legal but is profoundly unethical.
That is, of course, the point that JTM misses. Ethics do not know an onshore / offshore divide. They are universal, and can be breached anywhere.
Richard
Some people would say that many taxes are unethical in the first place.
I think you have to realise is that there is nothing you can do about Chartered Accountants giving tax advice.
Ethics is your personal thought and that is that. You will never stop people tax planning.
JTM
Your madness is revealed by your own words.
And you forget that a profession is defined by its ethical conduct – not its legal conduct. There is a great deal trhat the professional institues could do to stop this practice.
One day I think they will.
Richard
You talk about ‘ethics’ but how much of this Tax has been spent on WAR in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 10 years?
JTM has a point. While taxpayers’ money is not being ethically spent, there is and will be a temptation to reduce the amount of tax we pay. I know of some Quakers and others who refuse to pay x% of their tax on the basis that they won’t fund defence.
That said – two wrongs don’t make a right. Without taxpayers’ money, there’d be no state education, no NHS, no police, no transport system (ahem).
And there are other ways to demonstrate disagreement with how the government spends taxpayers’ money than perpetuating tax avoidance.
It’s a matter for personal ethics I think.
M