According to Hugh Cortazzi (Nov. 28 article, “Failures in market economies“), “When people and companies enjoy the benefits open to all in Britain. … [yet] do all they can to avoid paying tax, their behavior is immoral.”
Cortazzi is making a moral argument about tax avoidance, but fails to consider the morality of the tax regime itself.
Most industrialized nations have a tax regime that is complex and opaque, used as much for social engineering as for generating revenue. Labeling legal tax-avoiders as “immoral” in countries where double, triple or quadruple taxation is the norm is the very definition of hypocrisy.
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