Tax dodges cost £4bn.. that’s rich
THERE are, they used to say, two certainties in life: death and taxes.
Although not if you’re the Queen. Or Lewis Hamilton, the Duke of Westminster, Apple, our MPs’ pension fund or various no-marks from Mrs Brown’s Boys.
It’s turned out this bunch have only the death thing to worry about, having stashed their cash offshore to avoid tax bills.
They’re just the latest in a very long list of the super-rich to be outed in documents which cast light on the secretive world of offshore dealing.
There is nothing which illustrates better the chasm running through our country right now than the division between those who avoid their dues and those who PAYE their dues. Tax avoidance of this complexity is another exclusive perk for the super-rich and the super indulged. They’re the ones with the ability to employ accountants able to wheedle their way around any tax law in return for a hefty commission.
And so that’s exactly what they do.
Like unsupervised kids in a sweet shop, they gorge themselves on everything they can lay their hands on until, fit to burst with their gluttony, they spew over the rest of us. They spew over our nurses, doctors, teachers and police who’ve not had a pay rise in years.
They spew over our elderly lined up on trollies in hospital corridors. They spew over our kids crammed into leaking classrooms sharing one textbook between five.
But tax avoidance isn’t just a perk of a super-rich elite – it is made possible by a superrich elite. For why hasn’t this Government stopped – or at least slowed – this particular gravy train?
Benefit fraud accounts for around £1.4billion a year in Britain. Illegal evasion of tax adds up to £4.4billion.
Then there’s another £2.7billion of “legal but dubious” tax avoidance.
Everyone, rich and poor, should play by the rules. But make no mistake – the superrich are leeching off us seven times that of benefit dodgers.
But if you have any doubt about our Government’s priorities, consider these figures. It employs around 3,500 people in the DWP investigating benefit fraud – yet just 800 at the HMRC to probe tax avoidance. It’s wrong and it’s rotten.
And it’s time to smash this system once and for all.
Like kids in a sweet shop, they gorge until they burst