A point too often glossed over by our media and politicians when point scoring. Tax law is

an area that troubles me somewhat in that its one of the few areas of the law where the well founded principle that actions cannot be retrospectively declared unlawful does not always apply. Take the film investments schemes for example. Originally encouraged by the government as a means of encouraging investment in the British film industry. As far as I can see HMRC knew about these schemes right from the off but sat on the fence as to whether it was avoidance or evasion and then declared it unlawful once many, many people had invested millions of pounds.

There is clearly a difference between structuring your affairs is such a "lawful" way as to minimize tax liabilities and unlawful tax evasion but we live in such times of public outrage that any time a public figure avoids tax they get savaged for it. As has been said above, provided it's not hypocritical in terms of what they are pushing for for everyone else I don't have an issue with it.

Posted By: Jim, Sep 27, 08:52:01