John Pugh
Main Page: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)Department Debates - View all John Pugh's debates with the HM Treasury
(14 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberShould we not recognise that tax avoidance and tax evasion are two very different things, and that although we can make a rational guess as to the extent of the former, tax evasion that is successful is not detected at all and therefore any estimate of it must be highly speculative?
I fully concur, which is why I think that HMRC must apply a lot more resources to tackling quantification. The estimates I have been given range widely from the £40 billion from the Treasury for both avoidance and evasion—its figures do not distinguish between them—to the £25 billion from the TUC solely for tax avoidance, to the higher estimates of anything between £70 billion and £150 billion for both evasion and avoidance. I know that Richard Murphy in particular has focused on evasion, which could account for anything between 40% and 60% of the budget deficit—the structural deficit as well—that this House has recently been debating, and dividing on almost unnecessarily it seems to me.