{"id":18253,"date":"2012-11-19T09:37:46","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T09:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=18253"},"modified":"2012-11-19T09:37:46","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T09:37:46","slug":"the-eu-says-we-need-a-proper-general-anti-tax-avoidance-principle-bill-but-the-government-isnt-delivering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/11\/19\/the-eu-says-we-need-a-proper-general-anti-tax-avoidance-principle-bill-but-the-government-isnt-delivering\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU says we need a proper General Anti-Tax Avoidance Principle Bill – but the government isn’t delivering"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FT\u00a0reports\u00a0this morning that it has seen draft measures being considered by the EU <\/a>designed to tackle tax avoidance. So have I. And amongst them is a demand for a\u00a0general\u00a0anti-avoidance rule to be\u00a0built\u00a0into all EU countries tax law. Since it is something I have been demanding for many years I am delighted to see it.<\/p>\n

What is also welcome is that their draft makes clear that they are looking at a general rule. It reads like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now it so happens that there is a rule that does something very like this before parliament right now: it is Michael Meacher's\u00a0General Anti-Tax Avoidance Principle Bill<\/a>, which, as is widely known, I wrote.<\/p>\n

There is also the\u00a0proposal\u00a0for a\u00a0general\u00a0anti-abuse rule being promoted by the\u00a0government<\/a>,\u00a0which does no such thing and which is intended only to stop the most absurd of pre-packaged\u00a0schemes largely\u00a0targeted\u00a0at people like Jimmy Carr.<\/p>\n

The EU rule is aimed at the likes of Google and Amazon: it could be used against them. So could Meacher's Bill. That's what I intended.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0government's\u00a0Bill would go\u00a0nowhere\u00a0near such abuse. That says two things. First, the\u00a0government is not serious about tax\u00a0avoidance. Second, and more worryingly, it is the\u00a0abuser's\u00a0friend as a result, providing them with cover for their behaviour\u00a0\u00a0by letting them say, yet again, it falls within the law.<\/p>\n

There is a fault line here, and one which the public need to know about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The FT\u00a0reports\u00a0this morning that it has seen draft measures being considered by the EU designed to tackle tax avoidance. So have I. And amongst them
 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-18253","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\/18253","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=18253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}