A Taxing Question

According to THIS report, tax avoidance in the UK is costing on average and extra 2p in the pound on the average rate. In a week which saw comedian Jimmy Carr publicly lambasted for using a legal tax haven to avoid paying higher rate taxes, as well as the laughable moral position taken by the Prime Minister on the affair, is personal tax avoidance the real issue?

Other reports elsewhere suggest not. Whilst individuals may manage to avoid paying some tax, businesses are well ahead of the game here and cheered on from the sidelines too. According to figures published online in this article, UK businesses avoid paying a whopping £69.9 BILLION using perfectly legal means to do so. In 145 countries around the globe, corporate tax avoidance adds up to an eye-watering $3.1 TRILLION DOLLARS, somewhat paling into insignificance personal tax avoidance as well as that other beating drum of the right-wing press, benefit fraud.

The truth is, businesses avoiding paying taxes because it is sound economic sense. But is it immoral as the PM suggests?  Toby Young wrote for The Telegraph back in February that "Tax avoidance isn't morally wrong. It's perfectly sensible behaviour."  And from a business, profit making perspective he is correct. 


The PM and others may condemn the individual, but the gulf between individuals and businesses in the tax-avoidance game, and the corresponding silence from the lips of most politicians on the issue,  merely acts to highlight who they ultimately serve - the interests of big business and capital.

Widen the question then, and the 'morality' of business and capitalism in general comes into the debate. Here the truth is easier to define though - all profits are immoral as they are the stolen labour of the working classes. Capitalism at its core then, is an immoral system. But you knew that already, right?


SussexSocialist