Tax Policy Associates founder Dan Neidle has started investigating what he calls the ‘underreported side of tax avoidance’, initially focusing on the involvement of senior tax lawyers in advising promoters of tax avoidance schemes.
In a recent speech to the City of London Solicitor’s Company, Neidle highlighted the critical role of lawyers in upholding the rule of law, including in cases where, typically, a small boutique firm sets up a tax scheme and approaches a KC for an opinion that the scheme works. In the circumstances Neidle outlines, the KC duly gives the opinion and the promoter sells the scheme to taxpayers. Neidle alleges that KCs can easily issue the requisite opinion, pocket the fee and expect no further scrutiny; the KC will not be sued by the taxpayer, regardless of the eventual tax outcome, because the taxpayer was never the KC’s client.
Commenting on a scheme that was ‘so blatant, and so doomed, that it took my breath away’, Neidle has contacted the KC involved for comment, saying that ‘unless he can demonstrate I am mistaken I will be publicly naming him and publishing the full text of his opinion, together with our analysis as to why I think it was so outrageous.’
Tax Policy Associates founder Dan Neidle has started investigating what he calls the ‘underreported side of tax avoidance’, initially focusing on the involvement of senior tax lawyers in advising promoters of tax avoidance schemes.
In a recent speech to the City of London Solicitor’s Company, Neidle highlighted the critical role of lawyers in upholding the rule of law, including in cases where, typically, a small boutique firm sets up a tax scheme and approaches a KC for an opinion that the scheme works. In the circumstances Neidle outlines, the KC duly gives the opinion and the promoter sells the scheme to taxpayers. Neidle alleges that KCs can easily issue the requisite opinion, pocket the fee and expect no further scrutiny; the KC will not be sued by the taxpayer, regardless of the eventual tax outcome, because the taxpayer was never the KC’s client.
Commenting on a scheme that was ‘so blatant, and so doomed, that it took my breath away’, Neidle has contacted the KC involved for comment, saying that ‘unless he can demonstrate I am mistaken I will be publicly naming him and publishing the full text of his opinion, together with our analysis as to why I think it was so outrageous.’
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