Taxation: Tax Collection

Lord Barnett Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I think everybody agrees that we have a particularly barnacle-encrusted tax system. This Government have set up the Office of Tax Simplification, which has started work in this area. One advantage of the general anti-abuse rule is that once such a rule is in place, it should not be necessary to introduce as much new tax legislation to deal with tax abuse, because the general rule will cover it.

[Lord Barnett]

My Lords, will the legislation include a definition of aggressive tax avoidance as compared with ordinary tax avoidance?

[Lord Newby]

I think that the noble Lord is crying for the moon.