Over the last year, The Responsible Tax project has touched repeatedly on the avoidance/ evasion debate – and the problems created by confusing and conflating the two issues.
Is it more important to change tax laws or behaviours? What role do we all have to play?The third in the series of global Roundtables took place in Amsterdam on September 25 2017, with sixteen senior representatives from the worlds of politics & policy, media, NGOs, academia, corporations and (tax) advisory.
Tax avoidance and tax evasion are not the same thing. Yet they are often conflated in the media and in the court of public opinion. In this article I consider the differences and similarities, and conclude that they do need to be kept separate. But an informed discussion about the line between acceptable planning and unacceptable avoidance is also needed.
In ActionAid’s regular discussions with corporates on the subject of tax, there is a strikingly common theme in what we’re told by business leaders – namely, that whilst tax avoidance is indeed a problem, the tax affairs of their own businesses are beyond reproach.
