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This seems to be the central data point of the article: > less than half (48%) thought that legal tax avoidance was “usually or always wrong”. > By contrast,

This seems to be the central data point of the article: > less than half (48%) thought that legal tax avoidance was “usually or always wrong”. > By contrast, more than 60% of Britons believe it is “usually or always wrong” for poorer people to use legal loopholes to claim more benefits I think there are two reasonably simple explanations here: First, I don't know what a legal loophole to claim more benefits is - either you qualify for a given payment, or you don't. Perhaps I'm not paying attention, but I don't recall having heard much debate on legal benefits loopholes, just regular fraud. There's a risk that some portion of respondents heard "fraud", even though the question was about legal loopholes. The other factor is that there is a significant moral difference between arrangements for paying less tax on money that you legitimately earned, and arrangements to receive more money that you didn't, but which are provided to you to help you become your situation is considered precarious. Yes, there are people (legally) receiving unreasonable amounts of income that they didn't "earn", in many cases from public budgets, directly or indirectly, through various kinds of cronyism. This, not which rate of tax is paid on such income, is unethical, basically a crime, but I believe that the way to deal with it, is in a first class way, not through the tax code.

DanBC 9y ago
> There's a risk that some portion of respondents heard "fraud", even though the question was about legal loopholes. Isn't that the point? People see tax avoidance but don't see it as fraud; people see legal benefit maximisation and see it as fraud. > First, I don't know what a legal loophole to claim more benefits is - either you qualify for a given payment, or you don't. A benefit claimant's benefit is paid by the secretary of state for the department for work and pensions. That person is obviously busy, so they employ decision makers who sit in benefit centres across the UK. There's no way to interact directly with a decision maker. You can only ever interact with them via forms and postal letters, and those letters and forms go through an intermediary. A decision maker looks at the details of the person's claim. They apply the various acts, statutes, statutory instruments, and case law to the person's claim. All that law is scattered across various places, and so decision makers have a couple of handy guide books. These are available online. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decision-makers-guide-staff-guide https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decision-makers-gu... https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advice-for-decision-making-staff-guide https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advice-for-decisi... The advice for decision making is for: > DWP decision makers now use Advice for decision making (instead of the DMG) for decisions that involve: > Universal Credit > Personal Independence Payment contribution-based Jobseeker’s Allowance and contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance for people who are eligible for Universal Credit I think all the rest use the decision makers guide. Have a look at the guide. Have a look at the page numbers listed in each volume. The decision makers guide is 14,000 pages (fourteen thousand) long. And there's no index. It's impossible for ordinary people to work out if they're really entitled or not to a benefit. And the quality of decision making is, frankly, piss poor. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/30/staggering-rise-pip-complaints-rot-system-disability-benefits https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/30/stagge... here's a judge from a first tier appeal panel saying the decision making is terrible: https://sirhenrybrooke.me/2017/11/08/poor-decision-making-personal-independence-payments-pips-and-pip-appeals/ https://sirhenrybrooke.me/2017/11/08/poor-decision-making-pe... So, a legal benefit loophole might be a skilled benefits adviser who helps claimants make claims by helping them fill in the forms and gather evidence, and then helps them attend the independent medical assessments, and then helps them write the letter for mandatory reconsideration and then follow up with an appeal.
- mseebach 9y ago
  My argument is that I don't think that's what people hear when you ask them about "legal loopholes". And so the survey accidentally, implicitly ends up comparing "legal tax avoidance" with "benefits fraud" which is apples to oranges. If the questions instead had been "working with your accountant to minimise you tax liability in legal ways" vs. "working with your benefits advisor to make sure you receive the benefits you legally qualify for", I suspect the result would have been different. If you want to write the article the author actually did, the more relevant question would probably have been "tax fraud" vs "benefits fraud". I'd be curious to know what those numbers are.

DanBC 9y ago

> There's a risk that some portion of respondents heard "fraud", even though the question was about legal loopholes. Isn't that the point? People see tax avoidance but don't see it as fraud; people see legal benefit maximisation and see it as fraud. > First, I don't know what a legal loophole to claim more benefits is - either you qualify for a given payment, or you don't. A benefit claimant's benefit is paid by the secretary of state for the department for work and pensions. That person is obviously busy, so they employ decision makers who sit in benefit centres across the UK. There's no way to interact directly with a decision maker. You can only ever interact with them via forms and postal letters, and those letters and forms go through an intermediary. A decision maker looks at the details of the person's claim. They apply the various acts, statutes, statutory instruments, and case law to the person's claim. All that law is scattered across various places, and so decision makers have a couple of handy guide books. These are available online. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decision-makers-guide-staff-guide https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decision-makers-gu... https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advice-for-decision-making-staff-guide https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advice-for-decisi... The advice for decision making is for: > DWP decision makers now use Advice for decision making (instead of the DMG) for decisions that involve: > Universal Credit > Personal Independence Payment contribution-based Jobseeker’s Allowance and contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance for people who are eligible for Universal Credit I think all the rest use the decision makers guide. Have a look at the guide. Have a look at the page numbers listed in each volume. The decision makers guide is 14,000 pages (fourteen thousand) long. And there's no index. It's impossible for ordinary people to work out if they're really entitled or not to a benefit. And the quality of decision making is, frankly, piss poor. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/30/staggering-rise-pip-complaints-rot-system-disability-benefits https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/30/stagge... here's a judge from a first tier appeal panel saying the decision making is terrible: https://sirhenrybrooke.me/2017/11/08/poor-decision-making-personal-independence-payments-pips-and-pip-appeals/ https://sirhenrybrooke.me/2017/11/08/poor-decision-making-pe... So, a legal benefit loophole might be a skilled benefits adviser who helps claimants make claims by helping them fill in the forms and gather evidence, and then helps them attend the independent medical assessments, and then helps them write the letter for mandatory reconsideration and then follow up with an appeal.

mseebach 9y ago
My argument is that I don't think that's what people hear when you ask them about "legal loopholes". And so the survey accidentally, implicitly ends up comparing "legal tax avoidance" with "benefits fraud" which is apples to oranges. If the questions instead had been "working with your accountant to minimise you tax liability in legal ways" vs. "working with your benefits advisor to make sure you receive the benefits you legally qualify for", I suspect the result would have been different. If you want to write the article the author actually did, the more relevant question would probably have been "tax fraud" vs "benefits fraud". I'd be curious to know what those numbers are.