I love this headline from the Telegraph:
We're coming for you, Danny Alexander warns tax dodgers
Concerted action on tax avoidance and evasion will raise almost £4billion for the Treasury this year, Danny Alexander will claim.
Now that's interesting. HMRC are adamant tax avoidance is only £5 billion a year. Are they really saying they are going to almost eliminate it? Or is this tacit admission that my estimate of tax avoidance of £25 billion is much more accurate?
Either way, I wish Alexander really collected that money: I am not sure this is anything more than PR huff, but I'll suspend my disbelief if they stop talking nonsense about the scale of the problem which only harms the credibility of their efforts to address it.
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Clever. You not Danny Alexander!
Why, thank you!
Hey Richard,
Alexander seems to be talking about avoidance AND evasion, whereas you refer only to avoidance?
Had you overlooked that?
No – I quoted the headline that was no doubt HMRC driven
Even if he is talking evasion and avoidanmce his claimed success rate against HMRC data is ludicrously high
My point is they can spin – but when they wan to both ways they show that their claims are ridiculous – as is now obvious whichever way this is looked at
You are more accurate at five times his estimate. My guess is that you are only two thirds short of the right figure. OK, I admit it, I’m a pessimist.
You are only using HMRC’s figures for tax evasion whereas he is talking about “Concerted action on tax avoidance and evasion”. In which case (as HMRC’s figures that I have seen on this website before) claim the combination of tax evasion and avoidance is near (but no less) than £40 billion. Is 10% really a “ludicrously high” figure?
No, go read their figures – that is not what they say at all