FFS
Tax avoidance is just that - it is AVOIDING tax that you are not legally bound to pay. ISA's, pension plans and a whole host of other financial instruments and methods of tax planning are all entirely legitimate schemes that are legally defined as tax avoidance in the UK.

Tax EVASION is not paying tax that you are legally obliged to pay. There is a great difference - prime amongst them being that one is entirely legal and the other is not.

People may be morally outraged by tax avoision, but it is entirely legitimate and entirely legal.
( Hunter Stockton was murdered by a bicycle wielding axolotl,.,.,.,., Thu 1 Mar 2012, 17:56, 1 reply)

?
I wasn't expressing moral outrage, merely pointing out that we are also rather inept when it comes to taxes. Chiding the Greeks for having a budget deficit and a porous tax code while yourself having a budget deficit and and a porous tax code: pots, kettles, etc.
(cs1ca, Thu 1 Mar 2012, 19:03, closed)

Apologies
Not moral outrage, I just get frustrated with people not understanding the difference between the two (yes - I work in Wealth Management, though not for much longer). The UK can't lose money through tax avoision, as it is not money that it is absolutely entitled to.

I s'pose the difference between the two countries is the attitude towards reducing the deficit. Whereas the UK is taking active steps to curtail government spending, the Greek austerity plans were laughable until the EU took further measures to intervene. What's interesting is that a lot of the people who are suffering most are the ones who remain the quietest. Example - a neurosurgeon in Greece employed by the state now earns the same as I earnt in an entry level job almost a decade ago straight after leaving school. But I digress.

As aother aside - you may think that the UK's tax system is porous, but in actuality it's one of the most efficient taxation systems in the World, and a system that the majority of other countries look towards before bringing in new legislation.

Hmm. Not sure where I was going with that now, but apologies if you took offence.
( Hunter Stockton was murdered by a bicycle wielding axolotl,.,.,.,., Fri 2 Mar 2012, 0:46, closed)

Well...
In the main that's true, though there are plenty of cases (i.e. legal cases) that were being brought against some of the more borderline avoidance techniques (which were new, complex or unusual enough that it wasn't entirely clear that they weren't in fact evasion) where legislation hasn't kept pace.

Those are technically avoidance, but only because they haven't been tested in court and found to be evasion. Vodafone (among others) had made provision in their accounts to pay up to about $4bn for one particular scam until the chief exec of HMRC took it upon himself, against his own legal advice, to shakes hands on it and drop the case.

So while, in the number of ways taxes go without being paid, I'm sure you're correct that by far the majority are legitimate avoidance, in the volumes of potential tax going unpaid through the use of those methods, the difference between legal avoidance and illegal evasion is altogether less clear.

Only a small number of methods are questionable legally and/or morally, but vast sums get funnelled through those methods because they're the ones only available to the megarich and to big multinational corporations.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Fri 2 Mar 2012, 12:28, closed)