Has the time come to consider criminalising tax avoidance?
Posted by John, April 28th, 2016 - under Tax avoidance.
Has the time come to consider criminalising tax avoidance and making boards and senior officers liable for prison sentences, asks former ATO Assistant Commissioner, John Passant in Independent Australia.
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Comments
Comment from John
Time April 28, 2016 at 9:14 pm
It is of course, ‘Tom’ the fact that tax avoidance is not illegal. The poor man’s tax avoidance is tax evasion.
Comment from Tom
Time April 28, 2016 at 5:34 pm
You better start building a lot of jails.
As a tax professional, I can tell that a hell of a lot of people don’t pay all the tax they should. Quite a lot of dodgy deductions. Why? Because people consider money in their pocket better than money going to someone else.
Over $30 billion a year is claimed in deductions and I doubt every one of them is genuine, or a receipt is able to be produced.
In my experience the biggest tax cheats are tradies and small business operators.