Leave it alone!

KEY POINTS

• Should professional guidance be backed by sanctions.
• Current guidance is quiet on ethics and tax avoidance.
• No business opportunities for advisers on avoidance?
• Does refusing to offer advice on avoidance help?
• Unacceptable avoidance schemes should be made illegal.

As surely as the waves of an incoming tide lap further up the beach each paper on tax reform reaches a little further than its predecessor. The report Tackling Corporate Tax Avoidance in a Global Economy: Is a New Approach Needed? (published by the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs) contributes to this progression by both proposing immediate measures and commenting on alternative tax systems that could serve as long-term solutions to the problems of profit shifting.

Still the report also has its...