Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. It is this Government, for example, who raised the personal allowance to £11,500, taking 3 million to 4 million of the lowest paid out of tax altogether. It is this Government who brought in the national living wage, and it is this Government who will go on ensuring that those who have the broadest shoulders pay their fair share of tax.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that HMRC would serve the Government and the people of the United Kingdom better by challenging those who bend the rules rather than by fining my law-abiding constituent, Sheila, £1,600 for a £135 yearly tax bill, when all that she had failed to do was to press “enter” at the end of the form?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady raises an important point.

There is an assumption on the Opposition Benches that nothing is being done about these various issues. The right hon. Member for Barking referred to an element of the “Panorama” programme on the Panama papers that described income that had been diverted overseas and then loaned back to individuals. That is known as disguised remuneration. She rightly asked what the Government were doing about such practices. Let me point her in the direction of the Finance Bill that has just gone through this House. On the matter of disguised remuneration, individuals will be given until 2019 to clear up those arrangements. Otherwise, they will pay a penalty. It is as simple as that.