Expect ‘tax avoidance’ to be Budget’s buzz phrase

David Bennett, tax partner at Moore and Smalley, offers his thoughts ahead of Budget 2015

I predict that the content of the budget will be quite thin, and his speech will be more about setting the tone for the pending General Election.

I think the political aspect of this budget will be the focus on tax avoidance. This has been a hot issue for a number of years now in the wake of numerous scandals involving celebrities, bankers, footballers and other wealthy individuals.

As a tax specialist, I feel obliged to say here that there’s a clear distinction to be made between legitimate tax planning and tax avoidance, something that both major parties seem to ignore. My fear is that HMRC is starting to lose sight of that distinction, but that’s another story.

To be fair to the coalition government, they have already done a huge amount of work over this parliament to close down the most aggressive tax schemes. But if they want to stop Labour getting the upper hand on this issue they will feel obliged to do more. Let us hope that this does not impact on well-founded tax planning.

There will be a lot of noise in the House of Commons at lunchtime on March 18, a lot of silly shouting and needless banter, but when you filter all of this out, I’m pretty confident this will be a rather dry and safe budget.

Of course, it could get interesting if there’s a change of government. Then you can expect some fundamental fiscal changes come June and July.