Dodging Tax

The big story of today is tax evasion in the Swiss office of Britain’s biggest bank and who knew about what when, from Cameron downwards.

Part of the problem is Britain’s tax code which runs to 17000 pages. Within it are multitudes of allowances, as well as loopholes and ambiguities. It is only a small step from an allowance to a loophole and from avoidance which is legal to evasion which is not. The solution may lie with a great deal of simplification, so that like VAT or PAYE there is little scope for argument or fraud without committing a crime. This blog favours the abolition of coporation tax and at the same time profit as a taxable event. Instead a turnover tax which would be paid wherever the money was transacted, irrespective of where the individual or corporation was domiciled, even if head office were on the moon.