Taxation: Avoidance

Debate between Lord Strasburger and Lord Sassoon

Wednesday 25th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

I can certainly confirm that tax avoidance is not illegal. I can also say, building on the figures that I gave before, that of the £35 billion tax gap, £30 billion is estimated to be evasion and a relatively small part, £5 billion, to be avoidance.

[Lord Strasburger]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strasburger]

My Lords, could my noble friend tell the House what the annual cost is to the Exchequer of the tax breaks that this country gives to non-doms? Which other countries are so generous to their rich foreign residents?

[Lord Sassoon]

I suspect that it would be very difficult to estimate the benefits of the non-dom tax regime. The principal benefit is that we derive an enormous amount of business and employment from the fact that this country is relatively open to non-doms, and those benefits we must retain while at the same time making the non-doms pay their fair share. That is why the annual charge of £50,000 has been introduced by this Government and why we are clamping down on areas such as avoidance of stamp duty. We need to strike the right balance.