Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
To a certain extent, the tax system deliberately encourages avoidance. For example, different levels of road tax are designed to encourage drivers to buy more economical cars, thereby avoiding the higher rates of tax associated with gas-guzzlers.
However, there is a continuum which starts with avoidance that is encouraged, through a sort of simple, classic avoidance like opening a bank account in a jurisdiction with more favourable rates, ending in the sort of aggressive twisting, turning scheme that is right on the very fringe of what's honest.
I'm not going to start trying to judge whose tax affairs sit where in that continuum though.
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Surely the line is crossed when you're moving from intentional tax avoidance measures that the Government puts in place, such as the car example, to schemes which exploit loopholes that were not to be used in such a way but the set of circumstances in which they can be exploited were not envisioned by the Inland Revenue.