Tax Avoidance (HSBC) Debate

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Department: HM Treasury
Monday 9th February 2015

(9 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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David Gauke Portrait Mr Gauke
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I repeat that, as far as I am aware, no one has come forward with any evidence suggesting that Lord Green was involved in the activities of the Swiss subsidiary about which we have been talking today.

Robin Walker Portrait Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
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Of course it is right for us to do all that we can to recover taxes that have been either wrongly avoided or illegally evaded, but is it not just as great a scandal that the Labour Government allowed their friends in private equity—the same people to whom they tried to sell Royal Mail and the Post Office—to avoid tax legally by keeping capital gains tax so low that multi-millionaires paid less tax than their cleaners?

David Gauke Portrait Mr Gauke
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My hon. Friend has raised an important point. There was a problem with the way in which our system was working, and, as my hon. Friend says, the fact that cleaners paid a higher rate of tax than some people in private equity demonstrates how the last Government went awry.