{"id":12970,"date":"2011-11-24T09:21:20","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T09:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=12970"},"modified":"2011-11-24T09:21:20","modified_gmt":"2011-11-24T09:21:20","slug":"we-know-we-need-to-stop-tax-abuse-so-why-is-it-so-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2011\/11\/24\/we-know-we-need-to-stop-tax-abuse-so-why-is-it-so-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"We know we need to stop tax abuse. So why is it so hard?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interesting commentary from Andreas Whittam Smith in the\u00a0Independent<\/a> this morning, who says:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And he concludes:<\/p>\n

[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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Precisely so.<\/p>\n

But the tax profession is clearly already lining up to oppose Graham Aaronson's\u00a0proposed\u00a0attack<\/a> on the most egregious tax abuse schemes.<\/p>\n

Will those who support tax abuse never listen?<\/p>\n

And why do\u00a0government's\u00a0continually\u00a0listen\u00a0to the abusers and not those who want to do the tight thing? Why is it so hard to support ethical behaviour?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interesting commentary from Andreas Whittam Smith in the\u00a0Independent this morning, who says: What are people angry about? The deepening recession? Yes. The high level of
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,10,55,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-tax-avoidance","category-tax-evasion","category-tax-gap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}