There are ethical reasons why people like Richard and I take the position we do. We are of the belief that part of the reason the profession is in such a mess is that it is seen to be undermining the social fabric of civil society in a number of its actions. It’s hard to argue otherwise when considering the continuing tax fraud cases we see aired in public, especially in the US. You will see over time that the role professionals play in what should be their domain will diminish unless it is cleaned up. That’s already happening in areas like assurance on risk etc.

As regards #1 – I don’t need to defend Richard, he does a very good job all by himself.

As regards #2 – I’d like to see the evidence.

As regards #3 – I’d agree.

Yes – it’s true that in a past life I did work in offshore tax avoidance – but that was a very different climate than the one we see today, transactions were a lot simpler and in the cases I dealt, there was economic substance. Apart from the gold bars jobs but that was merely liability time shifting.

Strike 1

Richard Murphy is an expert in a field which he and journalists have created – analysing the tax charges in published accounts and comparing them with the headline rate. Not rocket science, and it hardly makes him an expert on tax avoidance any more than staring into the night sky makes one an expert in astronomy, but a chap’s got to make a living. Neither, as far as I am aware, is he an expert in ethics, and it is his (and seemingly your) blunt assertion that tax avoidance is immoral and unethical which seems to me to be unproven and which should be, and currently isn’t, the subject of considered debate. Whether the Guardian is in the wrong or Tesco is in the wrong in this little spat is not such an important question to me.

Strike 2

So now you’re telling me that if I don’t like being taught ethics by Richard Murphy, I should take lessons from HMRC instead? I fear we are not moving towards rapprochement, Dennis.

Strike 3

We would hate hypocrisy to come into this, wouldn’t we, Dennis? But then if one discovers that Guardian Media Group has entered into substantially similar transactions to those entered into by Tesco, that rather pulls the moral high ground from under their feet, doesn’t it?

Thanks for the headline, though.

Regards

John Kavanagh

PS Isn’t your reference to my bio a slightly low blow from someone who
“specialised in providing…(inter alia) …offshore tax services” in a previous incarnation?!