Moral Crusade

Hasn't everyone got a bit obsessed with tax avoidance at the moment. For some reason there is a moral crusade being launched by the Left and now David Cameron to crack down on people who are not doing anything wrong.

Moral Crusade being launched by the Left.

What's illegal about tax avoidance, absolutely nothing. People want to keep more of their money and stop the government taking it. It could be argued it is more moral to avoid tax than giving money to the government considering they waste so much and cause a lot of damage with it. But what is more important is that we let people make their own decisions in life, so long as they are not breaking any laws. To not do so is interference that deeply annoys people and leads to a less cohesive society. Imagine if we were doing this on whether people should buying and reading the Daily Mail, an activity involving money and one that a large proportion of people criticise. There would be great upset and that is wrong.

So why do we have this moral warfare? The rhetoric doesn't seem to be about reform of the tax law. Apart from George Osborne saying occasionally how the Treasury is trying to close some loopholes there isn't much said by the Left about rewriting tax law. Instead it is more immediate demands of cough up to lots of major companies and well known and important figures from comedians to politicians.

Nigel Farage has been accused of avoiding Tax through the Isle of Mann.

Maybe it's an attempt to punish those people who 'caused' the economic crisis. This idea is a ridiculous one though because of course the economic crisis was caused by a lack of taxation of businessmen and Nigel Farage. More tax causes a worse economy and its is government, which includes civil servants and ministers, getting involved rather than individuals and wealth creators that cause our economic woes. The fact is tax avoidance is done by a very large proportion of the population to some scale through accountants and tips from search engines. I don't see many people blaming the 99%, as the occupy movement always stresses, for the Great Recession.

Guardian tax diagram showing the 'sinners' who owe us money.

Perhaps then it's about actually paying off the debt. According to the Guardian who are experts on tax law (see video below) if we collected all the tax that was 'owed' to us by companies it would meet the amount the Government has cut in the country. The problem is, they forget where this money saved from the taxman is going, it funds peoples jobs and actually helps the economy. What would this money do in state hands? Well the state is a spender, it creates no money. Administration is loss making even on the basis of paying wages and the less said about Keynesian spending the better. The argument here, although sounder than others, is still full of holes that cannot be plugged.

So why is this really happening? It's just the Left hating those that create money and those who stand up for capitalism again. If we look at the Left view optimistically the wealth creators of this country can lose sight of the moral mission they must have to look after people and thus should focus on welfare and not jobs. If we look at it negatively the Left believe that anyone who makes any money is oppressing someone else and that everyone should give almost everything to the saintly state, seemingly the most common view of those most angry crusaders. Thus they will attack anyone they perceive to be doing something to make a profit and tax avoidance is the new way of showing this up whether it be by business or people who defend capitalism.

Capitalism Rocks! The Left will never understand money and the economy. 

I do worry about this idea of moral law, because it is no law at all. I wish Conservatives would show this up more, although recently David Cameron has pointed out Labour's own tax avoidance schemes to show hypocrisy.

Dave is not wearing a tie for tax purposes as it technically resides in the Bahamas.