Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Debate between Simon Hughes and Baroness Hodge of Barking

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) on securing the debate. I welcome the growing public interest in these issues, which is perhaps not reflected in the attendance in the Chamber on a Thursday afternoon. An issue that is sometimes seen as dry and complex and often portrayed as too difficult or obscure for people to get their heads around is now accepted as a matter of great public interest. I welcome the determination of the media in that regard, particularly that of The Times, which has done a good job of investigating the issues and identifying and exposing what is becoming a plethora of tax avoidance schemes that persist in the UK.

Hard-working British families, who have had to cope with a cut in their living standards and less money in their pockets because of the state of the economy and who pay their proper contribution in tax to fund all our collective endeavours and ensure that we have the public services and infrastructure on which we all depend, are rightly angry when they see a small elite in Britain—wealthy individuals and profitable large corporations—avoiding tax and putting so much time, energy and money into finding ways to avoid making their proper contribution. It is a terrible sickness at the heart of our society that too many well-heeled individuals and profitable corporations simply do not accept that they, too, have a duty, coming from their legitimate wealth, to contribute according to their means to the society from which they expect to take according to their needs and their expectations. Too many rich individuals and profitable companies see tax avoidance as clever, cool and worthy of praise and admiration, whereas it is immoral and wrong.

If we are to maintain public confidence in the tax system, it is vital that everyone knows and sees that it is fair, with everyone paying their fair and proper share to the collective purse. Tax avoidance and evasion are important because huge sums are involved. We have had the HMRC estimates and I have seen a Tax Research UK estimate that puts the tax gap at £120 billion. Whichever argument we believe, we are talking about many, many billions. A quarter of that sum is down to tax avoidance and evasion, but we should also have regard to the fact that the Government, in figures published last year, admitted writing off nearly £11 billion of tax that HMRC called “uncollectable”.

When the Select Committee on Public Administration considered how HMRC handled the large tax disputes with major corporations, we found that up to a potential £25 billion of moneys were outstanding to the Exchequer, although I accept that that figure is not precise. That is a huge sum and we need to set it against the cuts the Government have chosen to implement, such as the £24 billion per annum cuts in benefits, tax credits and pensions that hit the most vulnerable in our society.

The PAC considered a range of tax avoidance issues, including how HMRC handles disputes with large companies, the use of personal service companies and how those who engage in business with and make their money out of the public sector arrange their affairs to avoid tax. This autumn, we will receive a report from the National Audit Office on the tax avoidance schemes exploited by wealthy individuals exposed by The Times, which found that wealthy people were too often paying as little as 1% of their income on tax arrangements—for example, the K2 scheme used by people such as Jimmy Carr.

Based on that work, I want to focus on four points on which I think that the Government can take practical steps to tackle and stop avoidance and evasion. First, greater transparency is vital. We know so little and people get away with so much because the principle of taxpayer confidentiality is used and, in some cases, abused to prevent proper accountability to the public by the tax authorities. We uncovered the scandal surrounding the Goldman Sachs settlement because of the brave and determined efforts of one whistleblower. Questions surrounding other deals remain, such as, in the case of the Vodafone deal, whether the amount finally paid was correct and whether it was right for the company to be given extra time to pay. The Government should consider full transparency on the tax negotiations for the FTSE 100 companies. They are publicly quoted companies that publish their accounts, and we know from their accounts how much they pay, so we should also be able to monitor how settlements are reached and why the amounts are determined. People advising those companies use knowledge gained from negotiating one deal to get a better settlement for other clients. The public should also have that knowledge, so that they can consider whether avoidance exists.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I agree with the right hon. Lady and I thank her and members of her Committee for their diligent work. First, have they considered looking at countries that have a full transparency regime for publicly quoted companies? Secondly, will they ensure that no company that does business with the Government can use offshore tax havens in any part of its ownership arrangements? That is currently very common, particularly among public utilities such as water companies and others that supply key, nationally important infrastructure.

[Margaret Hodge]

The Committee tries to look at international comparators, but it does not do enough such work. The right hon. Gentleman’s second point was to be one of my suggestions to the Government, and I agree with him entirely. My final point on transparency is that there is a belief in the country at large that bigger companies are not treated in the same way as small and medium-sized enterprises, which are struggling and often pursued relentlessly by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. That belief will be shattered or broken only if we have full transparency and people can see that there are no sweetheart deals.

My second point concerns the proper resourcing of HMRC to tackle avoidance and evasion. Of course we want more efficiency from everyone employed at HMRC. The Labour Government cut 3,000 jobs, but I think that was wrong because evidence shows that for every £1 invested in pursuing tax avoidance, £10 is raised from the money collected. We should, therefore, be sensible about how we cut the deficit and we should invest in those areas where we will get money back.

I say to the Minister that it is worrying to see the threshold at which HMRC intends to pursue fraud actions raised because it does not have enough legal resources. It is also worrying that the extra money released by the Government in the spending review is not currently being used because HMRC cannot work out the training programmes that are required to get individuals up to speed for work on tax avoidance and evasion.