So will something be done about this now or is it all legal?
I don't know why people always stick up for these celebs that dodge tax
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Its completely legal. Hence tax avoidance.
If they were just not paying tax or falsifying accounts, then it would be tax evasion.
Everybody who earns enough to go significantly above the 40 % / 50 % threshold will be doing it.
Who wouldn't chose to pay 20 % tax and no NI, compared with losing 40 % of your earnings and paying NI as well ?
Yes 40 % is only over 35,000, but if your salary is in the 6 digits, or even the 7 digits, that pales into insignificance with the savings.
There are currently no rules defining how many people you have to employ to become to limited company, or what services it has to provide and to whom. So long as there aren't, people will continue to set themselves up as companies and pay corporation tax as they reap the "profits" their companies make.
It's partly a publicity stunt beacuse tax avoidance is in the limelight and also, as the article states, they have other reasons for paying more tax (they want to help support the country), nothing to do with taking a moral highground.
What these celebrities are doing is not illegal at all. Some people are just upset (and frankly jealous that they can't do the same) and so are calling it immoral and trying to have it stopped. Some people perceive the situation that they have to pay more tax as a result of celebrities avoiding tax.
People have been avoiding tax legally since the beginning of the tax system. Nothing is new. It's tax evasion that we should be far more worried about.
Indeed. David Cameron was highly laughable calling Jimmy Carr immoral while it turns out most of his fathers wealth was accumulated off shore in tax havens. Again completely legal tax avoidance. All the rich do it.