{"id":13459,"date":"2012-01-05T10:07:24","date_gmt":"2012-01-05T10:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=13459"},"modified":"2012-01-05T10:07:55","modified_gmt":"2012-01-05T10:07:55","slug":"if-clegg-thinks-a-general-anti-avoidance-principle-will-close-the-tax-gap-he-has-to-think-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/01\/05\/if-clegg-thinks-a-general-anti-avoidance-principle-will-close-the-tax-gap-he-has-to-think-again\/","title":{"rendered":"If Clegg thinks a general anti-avoidance principle will close the tax gap, he has to think again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nick Clegg has said this morning on Radio 4, and as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/politics\/2012\/jan\/05\/nick-clegg-tax-avoidance-pay?CMP=twt_fd\" target=\"_blank\">now reported in the Guardian<\/a>, that\u00a0the\u00a0Liberal Democrats intend\u00a0to remain at the forefront of the battle against excessive executive pay, and \u00a0wants the\u00a0budget\u00a0to contain measures to clamp down on\u00a0tax avoidance.<\/p>\n<p>He said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>he was determined to target the \"wealthy elite or large businesses that can pay an army of\u00a0<a title=\"More from guardian.co.uk on Tax\" href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/money\/tax\">tax<\/a>\u00a0accountants that can get out of paying their fair share of tax. They treat paying tax as an optional extra in which they can pick and choose the taxes they pay.\" It left millions of hardworking families angered, he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But all he\u00a0referred\u00a0to as an answer was Graham Aaranson's\u00a0general anti-avoidance principle - and that is only intended to tackle the most egregious of cases.<\/p>\n<p>He's got to do a lot, lot better than that to close the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Documents\/PCSTaxGap.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">tax gap of \u00a395 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If the Coalition is serious about this issue it should e talking to the\u00a0Tax Justice Network now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nick Clegg has said this morning on Radio 4, and as now reported in the Guardian, that\u00a0the\u00a0Liberal Democrats intend\u00a0to remain at the forefront of the<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/01\/05\/if-clegg-thinks-a-general-anti-avoidance-principle-will-close-the-tax-gap-he-has-to-think-again\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/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":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tax-avoidance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13459","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=13459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}