Taxation: Avoidance Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Taxation: Avoidance

Lord Eatwell Excerpts
Wednesday 20th October 2010

(14 years, 1 month ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Eatwell Portrait Lord Eatwell
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My Lords, is the Minister aware that the figure that he has given for reducing tax avoidance and evasion is roughly the same as that which is being taken out of the welfare budget in the current spending review? Why do the Government not collect the taxes and stop hitting the poor?

Lord Sassoon Portrait Lord Sassoon
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I am a little at a loss to understand why the noble Lord is questioning why we are putting extra money into HMRC to recover this enormous sum of £7 billion annually by the end of the spending review period when that was not done by the previous Government.