HMRC - Her Majesty's Riotous Comedy

It gets beyond satire. The Treasury and HMRC are crowing about the 'top UK tax cheats'. And that £994 million is being 'invested' in HMRC to tackle tax cheats.

Do these recent captured tax cheats, combined equal what the Revenue so diligently let Vodafone off? Why do the Revenue need quite so much money to find tax cheats? Is it because, when details of a tax cheat (Ed Balls) are published in national newspapers, it escapes their notice?

Just what is the definition of a tax cheat in the eyes of the Revenue? Because it seems to be the painter and decorator taking cash for a job. Anything bigger might be a 'friend' and so immune it seems.

Tax

I get confused by tax fairly regularly. Head in the sand approach I think. Anyway, we have heard a lot recently about the tax big companies don't pay in the UK, which seemed to rise during the Blair years. One of the things we keep hearing (apart from the head of HMRC going out of his way to help Vodafone pay a fraction of their tax bill), is that tax avoidance is OK but tax evasion isn't.

The problem is that it seems this is actually a clever way of manipulating words (beloved of the Left) to make us believe one of these is something it isn't. See, to the ordinary Joe Public tax avoidance is when you use allowances that are within the rules to reduce your tax bill, but to those who have really large amount of cash it means so much more. Companies and people like Jimmy Carr use 'vehicles' and overseas companies to hide from their UK tax liabilities.

I gather Starbucks buy from other Starbucks entities to move cash around to tax friendly countries and avoid tax on healthy UK trading. Clearly this is not avoidance, it is evasion. You have created a route to hide your earnings, which whilst within 'the rules' is obviously only designed to evade taxation.

Now taxation in the UK may well be too high (in the same way that the Sun may come up tomorrow), but if you want to be here you pay your way and agitate to get the burden reduced. Remember, we do have a lot of hare-brained schemes, waste and expenses to pay for before you include the politicians club, the EU. Hence the tax.

So let us be clear here. It seems HMRC are deliberately not going after the big companies and celebrities leaving a very large tab for the rest of us to pick up, by the misuse of language. It's time for them to stop their evasions and address the issue of evasion rather than avoidance; they can't avoid evasion any more.

Tax Cheats

I was amazed to not see Mr. Dave Hartnett amongst the photos of people who have cheated on their taxes. I mean surely, his work with Vodaphone probably cost more than the published crew put together. My understanding is that even Vodaphone didn't expect the level of generosity they received.

Maybe it was because of the advisor that HMRC provided for Vodaphone, or that Dave decided to not have an expert on his side, just went on an after dinner hunch. Maybe I'm wrong and Dave was completely right about what Vodaphone should pay, after all he did have several meetings with them, at expensive restaurants to get to know them.

Banks And Tax

We hear today of naughty bankers (are they ever anything else?) who have tried to avoid £500 million in tax. Naturally, bankers are fair political game, no-one ever came to any harm having a go at bankers. And £500 million is a lot of money.

But why the outrage? Why the headlines? When the head of the HMRC dines at expensive restaurants with large corporates and then has meetings at which Vodaphone are let off £4 billion in tax and it doesn't make headlines, you have to wonder. Yes, Four, billion, pounds. Oh and he was quite generous to Goldman Sachs too, but that too seems to have slipped past.

Funny what the papers think outrageous these days, knowing they set the 'outrage agenda'. Is it coincidence that newspapers are so strangely biased at a time in their history when they don't really do journalism any more? So much easier to just write what ever you are told. And politicians won't talk to you again if you are beastly about them.

Tax

Tax is a funny thing. No-one likes it, but most accept that it is necessary. But under that comes a subtlety; if the rate of taxation is perceived, even subconsciously, to be too high then the moral obligation fades. People start to look for ways to evade their full quota, as it were.

Of course, those with routine access to paid advice on how to minimise the bill have always exercised that ability, and the greedy, like over-paid footballers also have a history of avoidance. We know that the actual tax take declines as the rates rise, but politicians still persist in ludicrously high percentages. So who is surprised at the recent glut of stories about tax avoidance?

But our government and its tax authorities are deeply immoral at present. We have the head of HMRC taking a great interest in private meetings to assist large companies avoid massive tax bills. Not tricks or 'avoidance' you understand, they are just let off their dues. And then others are hounded. Civil servants have been set, tracking back over the records of ordinary people, in an attempt to find under payments. The (illegal) fines and interest that is now routinely added, obscene in the extreme.

All this of course, before we hear of the bonuses and tax avoidance among civil servants. Any chance this country is badly led?