Peter Vaines rounds up the latest developments in the world of tax
I suppose I ought to make some comment on the regrettably ill-informed furore over the payment of taxes.
I will make only a short point. I think the rule of law is rather important. Whatever view one takes of tax schemes there must be something rather misguided about describing people who go to (extreme) lengths to obey the law, as “morally repugnant”.
The alternative is for tax to be charged, ie for the state to take away your money, on the basis of what somebody thinks is “morally right”. No idea what this means—and of course there could be no appeal. For Mr Cameron or Mr Miliband simply to say: “I think you should pay £X (or maybe £Y (because they would never agree on the same figure) without regard to the law, might not be widely accepted as such a good idea.”
This would be a regime where the politicians are able to confiscate the property of the citizens without regard to any rule of law. There are regimes like that
