Timms heralds "new world" of pain for tax cheats

The Inquisition is Back

Who do these ludicrous people think they are?

God or Stalin? Sinners and Enemies of the People have been very flexibly interpreted by the followers of each.

You are intending to invest in a company to obtain reinvestment relief. All the boxes are ticked save one. Target employs 50 employees.
So you get the company to sack a few before you subscribe. Are you a tax cheat as well as a cynical swine? The fewer than 50 employees limit is what---a fundamental moral principle? What's the point of it in addition to the gross assets limit? Should the limit be revised as the number of employees regarded as suitable by Dave Hartnett, that latter day John Knox with his unerring instinct for fiscal moral rectitude.

And the difference between evasion and avoidance is no longer the thickness of a prison wall. HMg HMRC and some judges have gone Open Plan. Cretins!

Posted by: Jack Harper , 23 Sep 2009 | 00:00

Tax cheats

Will the tax-cheating politicians be subjected to a "new world' of pain? I very much doubt it!

Posted by: John Stephany , 22 Sep 2009 | 00:00

who needs to avoid

Who needs to avoid tax when evasion seems to be the best method.
The government would do well to support honest hard working tax payers by dealing with evasion, which is rife.
Avoidance is a problem caused by the idiots who write the legislation.

Posted by: K Alden , 22 Sep 2009 | 00:00

Extending the definition of tax cheat

In the second para of Stephen Timms opening comments he rightly distinguished those who deliberately bend the rules (whom we might describe as tax avoiders) from those who break them (tax evaders). He then went on however, implicitly to describe both as 'tax cheats'. I'm not sure that's fair across the board.

However, as I said yesterday on the TaxBuzz blog, I would accept that those who deliberately exploit the law in an effort to reduce or avoid tax liabilities, even if they just about manage to avoid(!) breaking the law, may be deemed to be 'tax cheats'- in that such people are seeking to cheat the system, cheat HMRC and cheat fellow taxpayers. I would stress that I am using 'cheat' here in the context of 'acting unfairly to gain an advantage.'

Posted by: Mark Lee , 22 Sep 2009 | 00:00

They still don't get it!

When will politicians invest in a dictionary (they've claimed for pretty much everything else) to understand the difference between avoidance and evasion. Evasion is cheating, avoidance arises from poorly drafted legislation. Its amazing how the defence "claims were made in accordance with the rules" is acceptable for MP's 'morally wrong' expense claims but not when Joe Public "exploits", sorry - takes advantage of, a loophole or ambiguity in tax law!

Posted by: Steve Biggs , 22 Sep 2009 | 00:00

Agree completely!

The same old chestnut - tax avoiders are all law breakers. When will the government stop dressing up legitimate tax planning as tax evasion? If they aren't trying to cover up their own sloppy drafting or rapidly withdrawing misjudged tax breaks offered for political gain, they are bending the rules they don't like - the pseudo 'employees' being their latest hobby horse. If they spent as much energy targeting the real evaders - those working on the black or using a cash business or VAT free business to hide evasion or VAT fraud we'd all be a lot better off.

Posted by: Disillusioned accountant , 23 Sep 2009 | 00:00

Avoidance is immoral

Tax avoidance is immoral. However, it is legal, so stop whinging and change the law.

The easy way to raise taxes and reduce avoidance would be to tax wealth (especially property, which would have the socially desirable benefit of acting as a brake on property prices) and to remove the utterly bonkers system by which full time workers pay tax at a lower threshold (and, including NI a much higher rate) than those who make capital gains.

Posted by: Joe , 23 Sep 2009 | 00:00

Obeying the law?

Nice to see that an MP thinks that obeying the law is immoral.

I suppose it is simply the flip side of having a perfectly acceptable 'technical breach of the rules' by the government's chief law officer.

And these people wonder why we hold them in contempt?

Posted by: David Nicoll , 24 Sep 2009 | 00:00