ANY accountant worth his salt will advise his clients on how they can avoid tax ("Miliband claims win after tussle over tax avoidance", The Herald, February 13).
That is their function; but it should be the function of the Government to stay well ahead of the smartest accountants.
Instead of hassling Joe Taxpayer to get his income tax return in on time, HMRC should be clamouring for all tax loopholes to be closed, permanently.
Aristotle Onassis used to boast that he never paid any income tax. How many plutocrats have since joined his club?
If a country allows individuals the opportunity to amass a fortune, the country's fiscal system should ensure that a fair portion of that fortune is returned to the Exchequer in tax.
Joseph G Miller,
44 Gardeners Street,
Dunfermline.
IN view of Lord Fink's somewhat delayed revelation on "vanilla" tax non-disclosures he should enlighten the public and the even more quizzical Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as to the extent of his taxation oversights. Merely to dismiss serious allegations with sweet talk is no way for a politician, far less a House of Lords member, to act.
Ironically, courtesy of the family name (Fink) it was always an uphill struggle for the venerable lord to be vindicated. My dictionary reveals Fink (slang) as being a strike breaker, an informer or alternatively an unpleasant person, hereby possibly hastening "Red Ed" to vent his wrath on the hapless peer.
Allan C Steele,
22 Forres Avenue,
Giffnock.
BY the day it becomes increasingly difficult not to become cynical about the Conservative dictum that "we are all in it together"'. We have had days of claim and counter-claim about tax avoidanceThe "win" Ed Miliband claims in your report today is resounding somewhat hollow for many onlookers.
Then, we read of the costs of sending one's offspring to Scotland's seriously expensive schools. Let us take an example. To send your child as a senior boarder to Gordonstoun would set you back some £30,885 a year, a modest £235 a term more than Fettes. An impossible challenge for most people out of taxed income.
The man on the tram to Princes Street and the woman on the bus to Sauchiehall Street find it verging on unreal that there are many in this country of austerity today, who are able to afford such sums of money to spend on having their children educated. Whatever we are all in together, we are not in it with them. The pupils at such schools, with fees of such dimensions, cannot all be underwritten by indulgent grand-parents, by Russian oligarchs, by indulgent employers of those working abroad, or by bursaries.
Ian W Thomson,
38 Kirkintilloch Road,
Lenzie.
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