On the question of tax avoidance, if the Government do not design the tax system properly and people who should pay tax can avoid it if they do so legally, that might be correct legally, but it is not necessarily correct morally. Having said that, if the Government design the tax system in that way and someone takes advantage of it, particularly an entrepreneur, who might take the money they save in tax and reinvest it in further jobs and enterprises, that person can defend that on the basis that if the Government were really skilful they would not be able to avoid it. On the question of tax evasion, people should go to prison if they evade tax. It is very simple in my view.
I have written to the Minister on behalf of a constituent who is an entrepreneur. He is about to retire and will probably dispose of his company in the process, because he is not talking about another income stream coming from continuing contact with the company. He accuses the Government of bringing in retrospective legislation in this Finance Bill, because from clause 192—I have read this part of the Bill right the way through to chapter 3, which is on accelerated payments—it is quite clear that the Government intend these retrospective investigations to go back to 2004. It gives HMRC power to declare in the arrangements for follower notices the ability to claim the tax based on other cases that might be similar to the case it is investigating or discussing. If it does so, it can claim the payment from the individual based on that follower notice.