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This seems to fit in with the UKs ambivilence towards tax evasion. Do you have any evidence of that or are you just confusing evasion and avoidance, the latter
by krona 9y ago
This seems to fit in with the UKs ambivilence towards tax evasion.
Do you have any evidence of that or are you just confusing evasion and avoidance, the latter being by definition legal?
All the official statistics (from HMRC, not the government) on the matter point to the overall tax-gap doing down steadily over the past 10 years, as well as the proportion of that classified as either tax evasion or avoidance.
- jimnotgym 9y agoThe campaigning tax lawyer Jo Maugham suggests that HMRC are being pushed by the government into allowing tax evasion by Uber (in this case). He has been privately pursuing them for VAT (sales tax) evasion for some time. He alledges some kind of sweetheart deal between UK government and USA to clear the way for big tech firms. https://waitingfortax.com/2017/10/27/something-is-very-wrong-at-hmrc/ https://waitingfortax.com/2017/10/27/something-is-very-wrong...
- raesene9 9y agoI'm not conflating avoidance and evasion (although it's a fairly fuzzy line between them at times, and things which were once avoidance have been deemed illegal schemes after the fact on many occasions). Unsurprisingly I don't have obvious evidence of the UK government breaking UK law. However what I would suggest as evidence of ambivalence is the fact that several jurisdictions which are considered friendly to tax evasion and avoidance (so called "noncooperative tax jurisdictions") are UK dependencies. The UK could, if it really wanted to, crack down on the tax and company formation regimes in these locations, but they choose not to. That, to me, is evidence of ambivalence.