THE Government has been warned that it cannot win in its attempt to stamp out tax dodging with a new General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR).
Chancellor George Osborne is to launch a consultation paper ahead of legislation next year aimed at catching "artificial" tax schemes.
But Michael Wistow, head of tax at City law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner, said: "The Government cannot win on GAAR. Either it catches only a minority of the most egregious schemes ... not the headline-grabbing attack on avoidance Mr Osborne has predicted or it throws a major spanner in the works of the UK tax system in terms of certainty, which is crucial to business."
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