The Times leader today has a lesson for those of us interested in the ethical status of tax avoidance: "Tax avoidance is not justified solely by the plea that it is within the law. Tax avoidance is a way of playing the system to gain reward that has not genuinely been earned. It is, indeed, a form of cheating."
Not so, O mighty Some-guy-behind-an-editor's-desk. If a game has rules and you play within the rules, then you are not cheating. There is no "spirit of the rules" to a game: Fool's Check is not a friendly thing to do to someone, but it is an exploitation of a position on which the rules of Chess pass no comment. In Chess, if you're stupid enough to walk into Fool's Check, tough luck.
While tax avoidance does, therefore, seem to have some sort of ethical character, it is precisely not cheating. (Which is just as well, because I'm not sure that cheating is immoral either, in and of itself.)
You might counter: this is not a game, it is people's lives & livelihoods. And you'd be right. But for someone to be cheating on the tax non-game, you'd need to show that there are two parties to the relationship, and most of us do not sign up to be taxed.
In the extreme, it's like saying that you would be cheating not to mention the fiver you have in your back pocket in the course of being mugged. Tax money is not a voluntary payment and most of us have it subtracted by our employer before we ever get our hands on a wage.
Before you tell me that there's an implicit Social Contract ... who told you that? Was it the guy who has your wallet, by any chance, and is haring down the nearest ally to blow your money on foreign wars and bail-outs for bankers? Did he mention that he was only going spend your money on the National Health Service and the Police Services before or after he relieved you of your watch & wedding ring?
Moreover, HMRC does not play within the rules of a game: it makes the rules. But the most ghastly rules ever made with regard to taxation is this: you are now regarded as morally culpable if you do something deemed intended to avoid tax.
Imagine that you are driving your car at 49 mph in a 50 mph speed limit, when you are pulled over by the police. It seems that driving at 49 mph is now deemed as penalty avoidance and the police rely on those penalties to support policing in the area. You have a car more than capable of 130 mph, you wealthy bastard. Stop grinding the faces of people who can only afford a bicycle.
Then when you get home there's a letter from HMRC condemning you for attempting to avoid VAT by saving your money rather than spending it: they have ordered a new television for you and charged your credit card accordingly. Oh, and they find that you could afford the mortgage on a house in a higher Council Tax band, so the furniture van will be calling next Thursday, some time between midnight and midnight.
Oh, and if it's against the law to enter into a scheme to avoid paying tax, there will be a lot of people after the next election looking very shame-faced ... because avoiding tax has always been the strongest reason for voting Conservative.
