There’s nothing immoral about dodging tax

There is nothing wrong with people doing what they can to pay less tax, says Matthew Lynn – so long as they stay within the law.

These have been a rough few weeks for anyone who takes time to minimise the amount of tax they pay. Amid the controversy over whether the Swiss arm of HSBC was helping its clients to avoid taxes, any kind of planning to reduce the amount you or your children might have to hand over to the government is being demonised.

The Labour Party is making most of the running on changing what it describes as a culture of tax avoidance. The shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, has said that if he wins the election he will review every tax scheme, and crack down on them if necessary. He even said he always got a written receipt when he paid someone a tenner to cut the hedge, and seemed to suggest everyone should do the same. Ways of reducing tax that were considered perfectly legitimate, such as deeds of variation to cut inheritance tax bills, or investing in films to take advantage of the tax breaks on offer, are now under attack.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.