Today the Prime Minister made the “mistake” of naming one particularly famous tax cheat – Jimmy Carr. Of course it is not just him who is a slimy tax cheat – there are also people like Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. And probably very many others. The rich have always had ways of avoiding paying their fair share of tax, and it is time we started pointing fingers at them and sneering.
There are those who claim it is unfair that these people are being singled out for naming. Actually it is very fair indeed; what might be unfair is that there is not a long list of everyone who is using some dodgy scheme to reduce their tax bill published on the front page of every newspaper.
Apparently Jimmy Carr’s lawyers have released a statement to say that he has done nothing wrong on avoiding tax. That is completely wrong – he has done something wrong. It may be legal but that does not make it moral.
What he has done is only marginally better than hanging around outside a hospital on pay day and mug the next nurse coming out.