Is it wrong to avoid paying tax?

Eloethan I don't think anyone has said that it's distasteful for hairdressers not to disclose any tips they are given - only that HMRC assume that certain workers receive them, and they are taxed as if they have received them. Personally I think that's very unfair.
I also think that the complicated schemes that some very wealthy people adopt at the behest of their accountants are more distasteful than say, someone with a small business who works very hard but uses devices to avoid VAT and so on.
BUT it is essentially the same offence, just at different ends of a spectrum, and there's a lot of hypocrisy from people who condemn the big players but are happy to avoid tax when they get work done on their house.
And as someone else pointed out, firms which offer cheap prices because they are avoiding tax are making it much harder for honest firms to compete.

Nearly 59000 signatures now.

www.sumofus.org has an epetition to ask HSBC to come clean about its tax schemes.
I do not know if it will make any difference, but it will be interesting to see how many sign up to it.

Eloethan, I have just been reading an article on www.taxresearch.org.uk blog.

I copied this paragraph to put on here, than saw your comment.

The conflation of morality and legality is corrosive to society and leads to a form of quasi-libertarianism bereft of true morality. When the ‘State’ is defined as the ‘Economy’ and contract law is allowed to displace the indefinable concepts entailed in Common Law we will lose many things. Not the least of these are democracy and the protective umbrella of law that aspires to moral validity and which is equally available and equally applied to all.

You are not the only one who thinks as you do.

durhamjen

It's like hitting a brick wall .

If you make partisan comments then don't get pithy when you are challenged with an opposite view.

I am not defending any party, I am relating honest reporting and no more. Hell I agreed with your links but I was obviously going to make the point that at some point in the link it affirmed what I have been saying, this whistleblower said he reported this to the UK in 2008.. No doubt a lot more will come out in the wash as this story gains momentum.

I don't make things up I watch very carefully at what is being said, reported and spoken.

What are you actually objecting to? I have said I believe this to be an issue with HMRC

I think you just don't like to hear anything that says it as it is when it comes to Labour.

I'm obviously in a minority in thinking that it is far more distasteful for someone who is worth millions to use all means possible to avoid paying tax than it is for, say, a hairdresser not to disclose all his/her tips.

I agree with crun's point about there being a vast difference between people paying money into ISAs in a very above board and uncomplicated way, and very wealthy people/corporations exploiting tax rules by entering into complex schemes which have been devised not for genuine investment reasons but mainly or solely to avoid tax.

If a scheme is so complicated that it has to be examined in minute detail by a tax tribunal so that its legitimacy or otherwise can be determined - such as happened in the Gary Barlow, et al, scheme when it was finally declared to be a tax avoidance vehicle - then I think something is wrong somewhere. It was reported that "Through the partnerships, wealthy investors were claiming lucrative tax losses. In some cases Icebreaker scheme partners were attempting to claim tax relief on losses of up to five times more than they invested in the partnerships." (I don't even understand how that is not a criminal offence.)

These tribunals must cost a huge amount of money and resources and I would imagine they are not embarked upon as a matter of course. Those devising, and using, the schemes must feel the odds of them actually being investigated are pretty low. I am therefore fast coming to the opinion that the vast majority tax relief provisions should be scrapped.

Good Value: Reflections on Money, Morality and an Uncertain World.

The title of Stephen Green's book, which can be bought for a penny on Amazon.

"But the point is that HSBC’s directors of the day could have acted differently. It was never a secret that Switzerland is a place where rich individuals placed their money in search of secrecy. If HSBC had wanted to clean up its local unit and protect its reputation against accusations of enabling tax avoidance and evasion, it could have done so.

It’s not as if the board was ignorant of the risks. Here is a passage from HSBC’s 2007 annual report that reads damningly today: “As a banking group, HSBC’s good reputation depends on the way in which it conducts its business but it can also be affected by the way in which clients, to which it provides financial services, conduct their business.”

Stephen Green, chief executive and then chairman from 2003 to 2010, is the man who could provide a firsthand account of why HSBC failed to reform its Swiss private bank, and why the internal group audit functions – described as “centrally controlled” in the same annual report – allowed clients to walk out of branches with bricks of used banknotes in foreign currency.

In his short expression of “regret” following HSBC’s disgrace in Mexico and Colombia, Lord Green spoke coyly in 2012 of “failures of implementation” but never subjected himself to questioning as to why they happened. Certainly, Green’s successor, Stuart Gulliver, wasted no time in ordering a complete overhaul of the way HSBC operates. Gulliver has sold operations in countries where the bank accepted that it doesn’t stand a chance of implementing “know your customer” rules – they include Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras.

Switzerland, though, is another matter. The charge against Green and his board is that they didn’t know, or didn’t care to ask, what was going on.

In 2009 Green, an ordained vicar, published Good Value, an extended essay on how to promote corporate responsibility and high ethical standards in the age of globalisation. It ends with a rousing passage about confronting the future “individual and collective, material and spiritual, with hope – not with despair, and not with uncritical optimism.”

Uncritical optimism seems an excellent description of how HSBC conducted itself in Switzerland in 2005-07. The bank hoped for the best and didn’t ask too many questions. Green’s response is keenly awaited."

POGS, the Labour party was in government until May 2010. In case you haven't realised the coalition has been in government since then.
Can you explain why you are only critical of the Labour Party, when you are usually complaining of left-wing bias by others?

Nit-picking.

Hope they didn't POGS. I hope they spelt Cache properly.

Yes, but the assumption is that your employer bears the cost and you do it all at your place of work which often isn't the case.

lily I provided the uniforms, so the cost of replacing them was allowed against my tax, not the nurses'.
I think having to burn the midnight oil for one reason or another is common to most professions. Doctors have to go on taking professional exams, at great personal expense, for years after initial qualification.

durhamjen

Yes I do accept the links you provided, especially the one that has a recorded interview with Herve Falciani where it states:-

'IN '2008'. HERVE FALCIANI APPROACHED THE UK GOVERNMENT WITH A CATCHE OF DATA WHICH HAS THE NAMES OF OVER 6,000 INDIVIDUALS'

If anyone is interested in seeing the all party Public Accounts Committee Meeting it was on 11th Feb 2015, chaired by Margaret Hodge headed 'Wrap - Up on Tax'.

Actipual? Actual!

jane the allowance is not a percentage of what you spend but a predetermined actipual amount. Last time I checked, some years ago I admit, it was about £30 pa for 'books' - less than the cost of one text book. £70 for laundry? What about replacement? What about the midnight oil you burn at home while you study, prepare classes and mark work? Membership of professional organisations? One each. And you can't claim for most courses.

I know that now janea re tax allowances but as a young worker in my 20s I did not and went on not knowing until I was a great deal older.
Also although I did not have to wear a uniform working with young children I often went home covered in glue, paint and glitter! Don't think I would have been able to claim for laundry..too many anomolies!

PAYE workers can claim additional allowances.
The dental nurses who worked for me laundered their own uniforms and were allowed £70 pa against tax, completely legitimately. HMRC has a list of such things.
Similarly, salaried doctors and dentists (and other professionals) are allowed to claim membership of professional organisations, registration fees, indemnity insurance etc against tax, and also the costs of courses they attend that aren't paid by their employer.

Lily I do agree with you re 'pubic service' & other PAYE workers etc. If I could back date a claim for all the odds and sods I bought over the years to enhance the lessons I taught and the stationery I bought etc. I probably could have had a tax free year last year!

This is a very interesting statement from the government at the time.

"Cameron meets Green a second time “to discuss economic issues”.

The government announces Green is to be appointed as trade minister. The business secretary, Vince Cable, says: “In Stephen we will be appointing a minister with a long career as a leading international banker, one of the few to emerge with credit from the recent financial crisis, and somebody who has set out a powerful philosophy for ethical business.” "

Green was in charge of HSBC when Falciani left Switzerland in 2007, and Hartnett was in charge at HMRC, and then went to work for HSBC.

Doubtless you do not accept this either, POGS.

Here's the link to my previous post, whether you accept it or not.

www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/11/hsbc-files-timeline-from-swiss-bank-leak-to-fallout

It does not surprise me, because I cannot recall you agreeing with anything I say!

What do you mean, you do not accept my post, POGS?

I suppose you do not accept this, either.

www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/13/france-says-it-did-not-restrict-uk-from-using-hsbc-files-to-pursue-bank-and-criminals

It's hardly worth going down the avoiding tax route unless you are already very rich. Our accountant cost us around £3000 a year to deal with our uncomplicated, mainly PAYE personal tax and our small business. I assume it costs money to set up a trust and to service a bank account in the Caymans. If you are a teacher, a nurse, a social worker, working for an institution, you get no allowance for the training, gas, electricity, broadband, telephone, travel, stationery and books you pay for out of your salary. It's assumed, quite unjustifiably, that your employer buys everything you need and you do all your work in the institution. If you run an educational business, you get the costs of all this allowed. Hardly fair, is it?

I could never understand how our local grammar school could possibly be classed as a charity.

I think the school "charity" status thing is so wrong.

It is not illegal to avoid paying tax unless the scheme you use is actually illegal. There are many legal ways to avoid paying tax. To me the private school 'charity status' is one of those!

Tax evasion is illegal.

What are the morals /values of people who spend time and effort to avoid paying tax? Does it make difference if the 'avoider' is very wealthy rather than a person who has a modest income? Probably not.

If Ms Billionaire avoids paying tax by using all the legal loopholes available to them there is not real difference, morally, to Mr Scrapingby who does the same thing.

My personal objection is that it appears HMRC are directed to go after Mr Scrapingby rather than Ms Billionaire