British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has declared his intention of cracking down on the ways in which rich people in Britain avoid paying their fair share of taxes. He regards tax avoidance by rich people as immoral.
British voters will generally back his efforts but he will not find it easy to rein in the accountants and tax lawyers who devise ever more subtle ways of ensuring that their clients pay as little tax as possible. These firms have created a tax avoidance industry.
One of the most scandalous tax fiddles has been the avoidance of stamp duty on expensive houses and of capital gains tax on sales of such properties by registering the houses in the names of shell companies registered in notorious tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands (in the West Indies) or in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man — British dependent territories that fix their own taxes.