{"id":18301,"date":"2012-11-22T14:02:18","date_gmt":"2012-11-22T14:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=18301"},"modified":"2012-11-22T14:02:18","modified_gmt":"2012-11-22T14:02:18","slug":"channel-4-factcheck-provides-the-evidence-that-camerons-claims-on-tackling-tax-avoidance-are-just-a-work-of-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/11\/22\/channel-4-factcheck-provides-the-evidence-that-camerons-claims-on-tackling-tax-avoidance-are-just-a-work-of-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Channel 4 FactCheck provides the evidence that Cameron’s claims on tackling tax avoidance are just a work of fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

I liked this, from the Channel 4 Factcheck website<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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

The analysis is based on Cameron's claim that the government were reinvesting \u00a3900 million in HMRC to\u00a0target\u00a0tax avoidance.<\/p>\n

As they found:<\/p>\n

If we take a look at the 2010\u00a0Spending Review<\/a>, which outlined the cuts, it says as much.\u00a0It said that from April 2011 to April 2015, HMRC would have to reduce its\u00a0overall spending of \u00a33.7bn by 25 per cent.<\/p>\n

Of those savings, \u201cministers have agreed to reinvest \u00a3900m over the four years to combat tax avoidance, evasion and fraud\u201d.<\/p>\n

In other words, they\u2019re being asked to implement budget cuts, and of those cuts, some of the money would be given back.<\/p>\n

It still meant that even after the \u00a3900m was \u201creinvested\u201d, the net effect was a reduction in the budget of 15 per cent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And as they conclude:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s disingenuous of Mr Cameron to attempt to claim the government has \u201cput in \u00a3900m extra\u201d, when in practical terms, it\u2019s just taken a bit\u00a0less away.<\/p>\n

When we asked the HMRC to explain the give and take in their budgets, they admitted that it was actually \u201crecycled\u201d money.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the course of the Spending Review, HMRC will make savings to reduce spending by 25 per cent in real terms. \u00a3900m of those\u00a0savings will then be recycled into additional work against avoidance, evasion and criminal attack,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n

And when we look at the programme that money has been \u201creinvested\u201d into, Enforcement and Compliance, it\u2019s worth noting that it\u2019s\u00a0been hampered by staff cuts (we\u2019ve FactChecked\u00a0staff cuts<\/a>\u00a0before).<\/p>\n

Not outright truth evasion, but probably more like truth avoidance on this one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which makes it a work of fiction, as they note in their headline.<\/p>\n

All of which should depress us, given the fact that this choice to cut HMRC comes at a time when we are running the biggest deficit in our\u00a0history, which for its own reasons this\u00a0government\u00a0seems determined not to collect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I liked this, from the Channel 4 Factcheck website: The analysis is based on Cameron’s claim that the government were reinvesting \u00a3900 million in HMRC
 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":[107,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hmrc","category-tax-avoidance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18301","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=18301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}