Now the government’s admitted 50p tax rate payers did £6 billion of tax avoidance will they up their estimate of tax gap?

Posted on

The government admitted today that 50p tax rate payers alone did more than £6 billion of tax avoidance on one income tax ruse alone.

But in September 2011 they said all tax avoidance over all taxes plus national insurance and VAT was just £5 billion.

Now, let's be clear, those numbers are irreconcilable. And it's also now impossible for them to say I'm wrong on the tax gap component of tax avoidance that I argue to be £25 billion - when they found a quarter of that in just one ruse, that they say would have continued.

So are they now going to admit that my figure for tax avoidance is right after all?

This could be interesting the next time they issue tax gap data - because it sure as heck can't include the absurdly low numbers it has done in the past again - because they've now very clearly admitted they're wrong.

Whichever way they turn it seems they confirm my data is more reliable than anything they admit to. There has to be a silver lining to their incompetence.


Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:

There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.

You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.

And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:

  • Richard Murphy

    Read more about me

  • Support This Site

    If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi using credit or debit card or PayPal

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Taxing wealth report 2024

  • Newsletter signup

    Get a daily email of my blog posts.

    Please wait...

    Thank you for sign up!

  • Podcast

  • Follow me

    LinkedIn

    LinkedIn

    Mastodon

    @RichardJMurphy

    BlueSky

    @richardjmurphy.bsky.social