The forthcoming National Audit Office review of Revenue & Customs, high-profile alleged tax avoidance cases and Richard Murphy’s ‘There is an alternative’ (Public Finance, October 8, 2010), all raise the question whether we accountants have a conflict of interest on tax.
Legal tax avoidance and enforcement have become highly developed and lucrative specialisms for the profession. It is like lawyers defending high rates of legal aid.
A law that is not uniformly enforced on everyone is an unjust law. A tax that is only a tax on people who can’t afford a specialist accountant is an unjust tax.
Would a general anti-avoidance principle be a desirable reform? If the government wants to reduce tax on UK companies in a way that complies with EU law, leaving tax loopholes and creating precedents for exploiting them is not the way to do it.