Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I simply observe that the UK also has responsibility for the overseas territories and Crown dependencies, and I wish that its own tax code did not contain so many harmful elements that encourage tax avoidance.

Appleby’s lobbying illustrates another continuing problem. The Treasury, and other Ministers and Departments, listen only to a very small and exclusive group of tax professionals when making decisions on tax policy. It is one thing for the Government to consult stakeholders on issues, but it is quite another for the Government to be captured by the tax industry at the expense of the wider public interest. Tough and active regulation of the industry to ensure compliance with existing rules is therefore vital. Curtailing the influence of tax professionals on tax policy is essential, and making the advisers accountable for the schemes that they invent and market is central to the campaign to destroy tax avoidance.

The measures in the Finance Act 2017 represent one small step in the right direction of holding advisers to account, but the small print suggests that very few, if any, will be caught by the legislation. The definitions are too narrow, and the penalties too weak. Those measures have been introduced so that the Government can claim that they are acting, but until advisers are really called to account and properly punished for inventing schemes that are purely aimed at avoiding tax, the army of lawyers, accountants and bankers will continue to prosper. If the Government are serious about tackling tax avoidance, they must act strongly to deal with the illegitimate practices of those who make a huge living from peddling tax avoidance advice.

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does she agree that the approach of the prosecuting authorities in this country must also be improved? It is striking how seldom they proceed with the legislation that we introduce.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I entirely agree. I must now make progress, because otherwise I shall take up too much time.

More than half of the Appleby offices are located in British tax havens. More than half of the entities that were exposed in the Panama papers were incorporated in just one UK tax haven, the British Virgin Islands. Estimates of the wealth held in tax havens are by their nature difficult to verify, but they vary from $7.6 trillion to $32 trillion.