Today I attended the campaign in Parliament held by The Tax Dodging Bill Campaign.  I support their calls for the next Government to crack down on tax avoidance. 

This week, Ed Miliband and the Labour party have taken on the tax avoiders.  We have announced that our first Finance Bill will act to tackle tax avoidance, especially when just one out of 1,100 people who have avoided or evaded tax have been prosecuted following the revelations of malpractice at HSBC bank – these were first given to the Government in May 2010.

Labour will put UK tax havens on an international blacklist within six months of a Labour government taking office unless they end their system of secrecy and produce a public register of offshore company owners. 

Labour will also act in our first Finance Bill to:

• Introduce penalties for those who are caught by the General Anti-Abuse Rule
• Close loopholes used by hedge funds to avoid stamp duty
• Close loopholes, like the Eurobonds loophole which allow some large companies to move profits out of the UK and avoid Corporation Tax
• Stop umbrella companies exploiting tax reliefs
• Scrap the “Shares for Rights” scheme, which the OBR has warned could enable avoidance and cost £1bn and is administered by HMRC, and so ensure HMRC can better focus on tackling tax avoidance
• Tackle disguised self-employment by introducing strict deeming criteria
• Tackle the use of dormant companies to avoid tax by requiring them to report more frequently

Labour’s measures to tackle tax avoidance will also include:

• Ensuring stronger independent scrutiny of the tax system, including reliefs, and the government’s efforts to tackle tax avoidance
• Forcing the UK’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies to produce publicly available registries of beneficial ownership
• Making country-by-country reporting information publicly available
• Ensuring developing countries are properly engaged in the drawing up of global tax rules