We shouldn't let them get away with it

The government introduced a number of interesting changes to the tax law recently. A new tax rate for those earning a lot (over £100,000) by reducing their personal allowance and taxing them at 50% from next year (April 2010).

There is also a reduction in tax relief on pension contributions for those earning over £150,000. They will only be entitled to basic rate rate relief on contributions over £20,000 from April 2011.

Oh, but that's not fair on people who have set up regular pension contributions in the expectation of the higher rate relief, so there are complicated provisions to give these high earners their higher rate relief. The provisions are complicated because it is not always obvious that pension contributions are regular.

And then there are those naughty people who see a tax relief and try and get it even when it is not due. So we have even more complicated rules to stop these naughty people getting relief they are not entitled to.

And now we have even more rules published a few weeks ago so that those even naughtier people who look at the rules and work out what they mean and how to make best use of them. They now have to tell the Revenue they have found a "scheme" which gives people tax relief which they might not otherwise have got.

Sometimes you wonder - why is it all so complicated? Why do we use so many words which then have to be read in great detail and probably argued about through the courts in due course? If the government need to raise more tax, why don't they simply put up the tax rate or introduce a new higher tax rate instead of introducing a whole raft of legislation which only makes life more complicated for everyone. But no, taxes have to be fair, so they are complicated in their approach. (Oh and national insurance is going up but that isn't a tax and it isn't happening till 2011 so we don't need to worry about that).

We shouldn't let them get away with it - that seems to be the motto of the government - here have a tax relief, but don't you dare try and use it because that is unacceptable tax avoidance!