With the rise of protest groups like UK Uncut, images of shop fronts of ‘tax-avoiding’ businesses being smashed, public anger at reports on the disparity between large corporations’ profits and actual tax paid, and recent discoveries revealing Google avoided paying around £3.2bn in taxes in Britain and other countries over the past five years, it’s fair to say tax avoidance has hit headlines all through 2011.

Additionally, HM Revenue & Customs and the Treasury suddenly appear to be in crackdown mode on avoidance, in itself legal, and what it calls ‘aggressive tax planning’. David Gauke MP, secretary to the Treasury, said the government was taking tax avoidance seriously. ‘We must take every possible step to minimise tax avoidance. We cannot afford to let it undermine our efforts to reduce the deficit, and it is not fair that by deliberately creating schemes that avoid tax, some people pay less while the vast majority of the hard-working public pay their fair share,’ says Gauke.

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