David Cameron has to resign.

[PirateSmile]

If there is any evidence he has had even one penny of benefit from his father's dodgy tax arrangement, surely Cameron has to go?
He's saying 'it's a private matter' whilst presumably working on his notes for next month's conference on cracking down on such tax scams. You really couldn't make it up. He will no doubt plead ignorance but that's no defence. He is the PM. He should know he's benefiting from is essentially large scale fraud.
Are we really going to let him get away with this?

I don't think legal is the issue.

Of course it is.

Surely it is about what parliament intended when it framed the law. Obviously ISAs etc is good tax planning but dodgy offshore tax havens is bad tax planning - morally.

So in your view tax avoidance is ok as long as it isn't done by people with lots of money?

Every bit of my criticism of Cameron is predicated on the issue of him having benefited from the scheme.

Well, it's kind if an irrelevant question as most children have benefitted from their parents financial decisions. Every child in fact. It is an impossible question to answer with any meaning really. It would be ridiculous to hold children accountable.

It was legal, he didn't do it himself and there does not appear to be any evidence that he was involved. He closed the loophole when in a position to do so.

The people at real fault are those who let the loopholes exist.

And no, I am not a fan of shiny Dave.

An ISA is a tax avoidance scheme promoted by the government.
An off shore tax haven" scheme is a tax avoidance scheme allowed by the government.

I believe we simply don't have the personnel, resources, confidence and so on to truly test whether these schemes are legal or not. I know you'll disagree Costa but that's my position.

I agree all children are subject to their parents' financial decisions. As adults, the relationship changes especially if you are PM and in charge of the Country

You can only put 15k per year into an isa interest rates are so low that its hardly worth doing
the financial gain is pretty slim

Offshore tax haven,shell companies etc etc....a different league of tax planning only relevant to the very weathy and well connected

I don't disagree that aggressive and highly artificial tax avoidance arrangements need to be stopped.

There is, indeed, a government policy to 'pursue those aggressively avoiding tax'. This Tory government have done a hell of lot more to combat this than previous governments.

There is also a whole framework in place for testing the legality of 'schemes'.

So, how would you ensure DC's father paid uk tax on the family wealth held outside the uk? I suspect if similar arrangements were set up today they would fall foul of GAAR, however these were set up long before that was in place.

We can't rely on morals as a guideline of what tax to pay. Removing the foreign aspect and let's say it was held in a uk company; this still has tax benefits and would represent a huge saving on holding the assets personally, but would be perfectly acceptable to many. So where does the line get drawn?

I'd set up specialist tribunal and legislate to give them huge discretion to decide whether or not these schemes are legal or not. Somebody will probably be along soon to tell me that's unworkable...

Noooo but they've done that already......

I mean, specialist tribunal who actually do something...

www.accountancyage.com/aa/news/2401984/hmrc-bowled-over-after-three-more-tribunal-wins-against-tax-avoidance

Whilst not wholly efficient and could do with improvement, I think great steps have been taken by DC and co to reduce artificial tax avoidance...regardless of whether he's actually benefited from it.

I think it's universally accepted that the current system isn't working though Clash
The system I'd want would, amongst other things, be better funded with more powers to investigate.

You want them to have more powers?

Are you aware of the powers hmrc currently have? It was recently only narrowly decided that, on balance it would be a bad idea for hmrc to just be able to go into your bank account and remove funds without prior permission. HMRC do not lack power.

Also, I'm not sure what difference an investigation would have made - DC's dad was acting within the law at that time, so far as we know.

Yes, I do think they need more powers.

Pirate have you even read the links posted wrt clampdown on these schemes?

The one things everybody seems to agree upon is that more powers are needed

Tax is immoral in the first place.

This would be a good place to start...

www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2016/apr/05/no-10-insists-cameron-does-not-own-shares-as-tax-dodging-row-escalates-politics-live

From House of Commons Briefing Paper May 2015 : Tax Avoidance: a General Anti-Abuse Rule -

"Tax avoidance is not the same as legitimate tax planning. Legitimate tax planning involves using tax reliefs for the purpose for which they were intended. For example, claiming tax relief on capital investment, saving in a tax-exempt ISA or saving for retirement by making contributions to a pension scheme are all legitimate forms of tax planning."

Even David Cameron has said there should be an automatic exchange of information between countries. There are huge steps that can be made, To try to argue the current system and the powers it has are fine is in my view wrong.

No, everybody does not agree that HMRC need more powers.

They really really don't.

What additional magical powers, that they don't already have, would you like them to have?

Automatic exchange of information would be great.

Unfortunately if a country's economy is based pretty much around it being a tax haven they are not going to agree.