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  Mark - As I said the problem is getting the right balance so that economic performance is not damaged to such a degree that we become uncompetitive. Right now there is no balance, matters are very dire and the burden being carried by businesses is intolerable.
  
  There is nothing wrong with tax avoidance, tax evasion is rightly illegal. Why on earth you are so worried about what is being done perfectly legally. It is quite legitimate to use the means provided to avoid paying unnecessary tax. I have no idea of your personal circumstances of course but some of the ways you can personally avoid tax quite legally include:
  Pension Funding
  Using tax free ISA allowances
  Ensuring that nil rate tax bands are fully used and these include personal tax allowances, CGT allowances and IHT allowances. Switching of investment assets between husband and wife being one common method of doing that.
  Making sure that basic rate tax bands are properly used and where possible properly mitigated
  Now we can also do that for the higher paid make sure that the upper rate of tax bands are also utilised and where possible mitigated
  Using tax deferred investments and their assignment as a means to pass them on with incurring a tax liability.
  Top-slicing for tax on certain investments.
  Trust planning
  etc etc etc - these are all areas that the vast majority of people here on the forum can benefit from and are not matters for the rich.
  
  Business too have similar opportunities and any business that does not make sure they are tax efficient is not properly doing their duty to the shareholders (or employees come to that) - you could be benefitting from that too if you have a pension fund or Stocks and Shares ISA. In fact I suggest to anyone reading your post investigate the underlying investment holdings of their pension/ISA - there is a strong possibility that they are benefitting from the companies you have mentioned above and previously. Top Shop, Vodaphone, Goldman Sachs, the utility companies and so on. These companies are not in a 'bubble' isolated benefitting no-one but themeselves, they have people depending on them for jobs and most of us for our future pensions.
  
  But that is a small part of the story - the majority of businesses in this country are small businesses who employ most of the private sector employees. It is these companies that are always the hardest hit by the core issues of red tape and the massive state burden and it is these companies that offer the greatest long term growth potential on which future success depends. I note that you do not mention these. These are the vital economic lifeline of this country that are struggling the most in this current climate, it is these who most need the reduced state burden.
  
  At the end of the day when it comes to tax the best way are simple and low taxes. It is when taxes get high and complex that big companies start going to great lengths to find ways around it to reduce the burden and I cannot blame them as long as what they do is legal. Brown went to great lengths to find news way of taxing people and companies then introduced a whole range of complicated instruments to try to block companies avoiding those taxes plus anti-forestalling measures on top of that. Under him the tax code increased expedentially in complexity and yet the more complex he made it the more opportunities he created.
  
  Simple taxes and low taxes are much harder to avoid and are much harder to justify avoiding. That is what we need.

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