This week Emma joined Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls to call for tough action to stop tax avoidance.
Tax loopholes cost the UK billions of pounds each year in unpaid tax, but the Government has failed to get to grips with the problem. Under David Cameron the so-called ‘tax gap’ has gone up – the most recent figures show that in 2012/13 more than £34 billion went uncollected. The Coalition even opened up a new tax loophole through its “shares for rights” scheme, which is estimated to have cost hundreds of millions of pounds.
That’s why Labour has set out plans to clamp down on tax avoidance in its first budget. Labour would double fines for tax avoiders, close tax loopholes and make multinational companies publish their tax on a country-by-country basis so that corporations have to reveal money that has been moved offshore to tax havens.
The Tories’ failure on tax avoidance was underlined in the news this week, when it was claimed David Cameron had known that the bank HSBC had been advising its clients on how to avoid tax when he appointed its former Chairman, Stephen Green (now Lord Green), to be a Government Minister.
Britain’s tax authority, HMRC, received the evidence in 2010, before Lord Green’s appointment later that year.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, David Cameron refused to say whether he had discussed what was happening at HSBC with Lord Green.
Emma said:
“Tax avoidance costs our country tens of billions of pounds each year – that’s money that could be spent on our NHS, our education system, or paying down the deficit. It’s a scandal that the Government has not only failed to deal with tax avoidance, but has actually made things worse.
“Honest taxpayers in Shields will be disgusted to see the richest of the rich getting away with paying only a tiny fraction of what they should. As always under David Cameron, it’s one rule for the rich and another rule for everyone else.
“The Tories aren’t serious about dealing with tax avoidance because they are the party of the rich. Only Labour will close tax loopholes, punish aggressive tax avoiders and ensure there is fairness in our tax system.”