LAST week saw another brief furore about tax dodgers.

This time it was the news that of the 21 tax dodgers that are publicised on the HMRC website, just two had been captured.

It was a strange argument. There was criticism (from Labour) that this was a sign of the idea being a failure.

But it seemed that the critics had completely missed the point of the idea.

The paying (or not) of tax comes into three areas: tax planning, tax avoidance, and tax evasion.

Tax planning is what everyone should be doing. This is simply about making sure you take advantage of perfectly legitimate allowances to make sure you pay the right amount of tax.

For example, you wouldn’t pay income tax on your whole income – you make use of tax-free allowances and different tax rates. Similarly, you will save using ISAs and other taxfree opportunities. That is not just about getting it right: it is about taking advantage of opportunities the government has given and the same applies for businesses as well.

Tax avoidance is more subtle. This is about using the letter of the law to get around the spirit of the law.

Highly-sophisticated tax planners will use every loophole and opportunity they can find to reduce an individual or company’s tax bill but in so doing will be making a mockery of the spirit of the law.

We are doing as much as we can to stamp this out and this includes an international agreement to tackle this (much of what goes on is about juggling different tax regimes’ loopholes to create a complex web of legal tax avoidance schemes). But it is for the government to do more to make the tax system simpler and make avoidance harder.

Tax evasion is illegal. This is straightforward and as easily identifiable a crime as shoplifting or robbing a bank. The victim is all of us.

At the simplest level, encouraging a tradesman to take a ‘discount for cash’ knowing that he or she will use this opportunity to not declare the income is a criminal act, as is smuggling tobacco, alcohol, and not declaring income that is liable for tax.

The 21 tax dodgers that appeared on the HMRC website are known criminals – some of whom already have convictions against them – and are fugitives from justice. The website that Labour was so quick to criticise is no more than a tax version of Crimewatch – a forum where the public can help, if they wish, to bring tax evaders to justice. And the value of the tax they have collectively stolen from us all? £700 million.

Far from criticising ideas to collect this money and bring criminals to justice, surely the opposition should be looking to help.

 

Mark Garnier

Conservative MP for Wyre Forest