The last Labour government enacted significant measures to make sure trusts were much less attractive for tax planning in the UK. The latest evidence on the number of trusts declaring income for tax purposes (which may not of course indicate all trusts) suggests that this had a significant impact upon their use:
The data indicates significantly fewer trusts in use earning significantly less income.
Which does not mean we do not need a public register of trusts by the way: I firmly believe that we do.
But it's good to see that measures to beat tax avoidance do work.
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Would it not be caused by the baby boomers who have now got their affairs sorted.
At the risk of Richard’s wrath, I’d like to hijack this thread to make a comment that doesn’t seem, to me at least, to be getting much publicity.
In 2008-09 when the banking crisis was at its worst, the UK violently changed course from a Keynesian to a monetarist approach. The rest of Europe was already firmly locked into a monetarist approach because if Germany did it, all the lesser nations (& compared economically they all are lesser nations) had to fall in step.
The USA by contrast adopted, & has stuck to, a Keynesian approach, running a huge budget deficit, printing $s like they were going out of fashion etc. I remember comments in the FT that Obama was a lunatic that would bankrupt America etc.
5 years on. I think Keynes has been, decisively, proved right.
I agree
Entirely
@ William
You do realise Obama has *cut* spending as a % of GDP, don’t you?
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/recent_spending
The US has run a large budget deficit, but they are cutting it faster than most other comparable countries, whist also cutting govt. spending faster.
It’s the deficit that matters