Tax Dodgers

It was so funny to read a report in the Daily Telegraph that George Osborne was left 'shocked' in finding that some of the richest people in the country are virtually avoiding paying any tax by exploiting loop holes in the tax laws. If he had bothered to ask a man or a woman on the street they would have told him this practice has been going on for years and years. There are so many holes in the UK tax laws that if the Government was a water company it would be fined over leakage rates.

Successive Governments of every favour have introduced loop holes or just tinkered with the tax system in the UK over the years. None of them have had the guts to look at the system we have and complete overhaul and simplify the system. Millions if not billions of pounds of tax is leaking out of the tax system because of loop holes created by these Governments which are then exploited by cleaver accountants. It is nothing new, it is something that has been going on for years and years.

Now if George Osborne is serious about getting the taxes from these people then he needs to be brave and look at the whole system and not tinker with it like other Chancellors have done in the past. It is no good just closing a tax loop hole here and there when there are so many of them that the rich just find another one to exploit. The whole of the tax system should be looking at and all the loop holes need to removed and the system simplified so people have to pay their share. The result could be tax cuts for the majority while the rich pay what is due.

Unfortunately the chances of this happening are almost zero. When George Osborne said recently that he was “very happy” to consider publishing his tax returns and those of other Minsters it sparked a Cabinet backlash. That backlash will be nothing compared to the backlash from the whole of the Conservative party if he attempts to close these loopholes and go down the road of simplifying  the tax system. I don't think he or his the party is brave enough to tackle tax avoidance by the rich. All the same I still hope he can prove me wrong and this isn't just some kind of smoke screen to make us think that the Conservatives aren't the party of the rich. We all no the truth you just have to look at the last budget that George Osborne himself presented.