Brian Palmer, tax policy adviser at the Association of Accounting Technician (AAT), argues that the Paradise Papers scandal should not be justification to create legislation compelling wealthy individuals and large corporations to publish their tax planning strategies
The so-called Paradise Papers tax scandal has reared its ugly head, and calls will again be growing for Chancellor Philip Hammond to clamp down on the complex offshore tax structures of some wealthy Britons in his forthcoming Budget.
While tax transparency has been on the increase, as evidenced by the UK reporting its lowest ever tax gap of 6% only last month, how might the new revelations affect the UK’s 5.5 million small businesses and their tax planning?
In its purest form there is nothing wrong with tax planning when it is merely arranging one’s affairs in the most tax efficient manner under UK legislation. Over the last decade or so however, there has been a conflation of the words avoidance and evasion, resulting in some perfectly legitimate tax planning being perceived to be inappropriate by the public and the media.
