George Osborne has announced the government is to clamp down on tax avoidance by business and those who embark on aggressive schemes in a personal capacity.

'Today we set out in the largest package of measures to tackle tax avoidance, tax evasion, fraud and error to raise over 9bn. We're going to tackle the growth of intermediaries disguising employment as false self employment, depriving workforces of basic employment rights like the minimum wage in a bid to avoid employer national insurance,' the chancellor said.

To do this the government aims to halve the final period exemption for capital gains tax private residence relief.

And it will also end the abuse of dual contracts, offshore oil and gas contracting, derivatives linked to profits and share buy backs.

'And we will ensure the tax advantages of partnerships aren't abused either. We are introducing a new, limited power that requires people to pay upfront their taxes where the scheme they used has already been struck down by the courts.

'We are going to strengthen Whitehall's capacity to prevent error and tackle fraud in the benefit and tax credit systems, and expand their efforts to recover money that is owed,' Osborne said.

Commenting on the anti-avoidance package, Neal Todd, a partner in the tax team at Berwin Leighton Paisner said that ensuring individuals and multi-national corporations pay the right amount of tax is a laudable objective but the latest announcements beg the question of why additional reform is needed.

'We already have the General Anti-Abuse Rule in place which was intended precisely to act as a catch-all framework to ensure the spirit as well as the letter of UK tax legislation is obeyed.

'Imposing the most wide-ranging anti-avoidance package in this Parliament on top of the GAAR and so soon after the GAAR was implemented will lead to unnecessary uncertainty about the interplay between various sets of anti-avoidance provisions. It can only further lengthen the UK tax code,' said Todd.