It is actually profitable for a corp to make a donation and thus get a discount on corp tax.
Eh? How is that profitable? The only discount is surely just not paying tax on the amount donated. Any individual taxpayer can do something similar with payroll donations or gift aid.
I don't doubt there are perhaps ways to scam it but the idea in general that you're not taxed on charitable donations doesn't seem to be profitable as you're still making the donation itself!
That's a scheme. That avoids tax. Thus tax avoidance scheme.
ISAs are a tax avoidance scheme too.
Apparently not actually, these terms have specific meanings; you could make the same argument and say that ISAs "evade" tax that's a word that in general is synonymous with "avoid" but in this context both of those words have more specific meanings than just their general usage in the English language in other contexts:
A tax evasion scheme is something that is explicitly illegal; failing to declare income/gains, engaging in fraud to hide it etc.. things of that nature.
A tax avoidance scheme isn't necessarily illegal though is using rules in a way they weren't necessarily intended to be used.
Things like ISAs, the R&D scheme (when used honestly) are simply tax allowances being used in the way the law explicitly allows for and encourages.
edit:
Tax evasion is using some means to withhold your tax contributions. Such as using a shell company to purchase property and hide who the true owner of the captial gains and/or income from rent is .
That's not necessarily evasion AFAIK, mega-wealthy types can quite legitimately want to stay private. It's not illegal for some overseas company to make money from UK property investments, though HMRC might be interested in whether it was being managed from the UK, a mega-wealthy property investor would presumably have others outside of the UK managing it.
The issue in the Panama papers which made headlines, however, relates to stamp duty; if an overseas company owns a megamansion worth say 20 million then that could mean a stamp duty bill of 2 or 3 million upon purchase depending on whether it is a primary residence or not.
If instead a broker/agent arranges the purchase of the overseas company then no UK property sale has taken place and so no stamp duty needs to be paid.
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