I note that big business is already seeking to water down Graham Aaranson's already wholly ineffective\u00a0proposal\u00a0for a\u00a0general anti-avoidance rule. Finance Director reports:<\/p>\n
Chris Sanger, global head of tax policy at Ernst & Young, told the Telegraph: \"Businesses\u00a0will be closely watching any details to see whether the proposals have the potential to develop and expand beyond Aaronson's original intent. This remains a delicate area, where the Government needs to be wary of introducing uncertainty that could undermine the UK's competitiveness.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As I've already\u00a0explained<\/a>, Aaranson has offered nothing like a\u00a0general anti-avoidance rule, so what they're\u00a0clearly\u00a0worried about is that we might actually have the\u00a0general anti-avoidance rule we so badly need.<\/p>\n
So let's be clear what a GAAR does really deliver:<\/p>\n
1) It increases certainty for business: you know if you cheat you'll be\u00a0caught\u00a0so you don't do it;<\/p>\n
2) It\u00a0provides\u00a0a level playing field where honest business knows it will not be undercut by dishonest business;<\/p>\n
3) It means people compete on the basis of their real product offerings - not on the basis of their willingness to abuse tax law;<\/p>\n
4) It means small business that cannot afford to pay\u00a0expensive\u00a0lawyers can compete on a level playing\u00a0field\u00a0with larger businesses, who do more often\u00a0exploit\u00a0tax law;<\/p>\n
5) It engenders confidence and trust that all will be\u00a0treated\u00a0equally and pay their fair share;<\/p>\n
6) As a result it builds the foundation for real wealth creation.<\/p>\n
And now let's be clear why big business opposes it:<\/p>\n
a)\u00a0Because\u00a0they want to protect their monopoly profits based on their\u00a0hiding\u00a0what they do in tax havens and elsewhere, all of which might be revealed if a GAAR came into play;<\/p>\n
b) They want to compete on an unlevel\u00a0\u00a0playing\u00a0field, tilted in their favour;<\/p>\n
c) They want to cheat society to benefit\u00a0\u00a0themselves\u00a0- and most\u00a0especially\u00a0their directors and their incentive\u00a0schemes\u00a0by short term\u00a0profit\u00a0manipulation which is often\u00a0easiest\u00a0done by tax\u00a0cheating\u00a0rather than by creating real added value;<\/p>\n
d) They're lawyers or accountants\u00a0who\u00a0want to\u00a0earn\u00a0fat\u00a0profits\u00a0from this process of cheating society.<\/p>\n
That's the choices here.<\/p>\n
You can tell which side E&Y are on. And there's no\u00a0surprise\u00a0there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I note that big business is already seeking to water down Graham Aaranson’s already wholly ineffective\u00a0proposal\u00a0for a\u00a0general anti-avoidance rule. Finance Director reports: Chris Sanger, global
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":[64,134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corporation-tax","category-gantip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14692","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=14692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}