There seems to be a worrying tendency to conflate tax avoidance and tax evasion. There have been recent attacks on "agressive tax avoidance" - the implication being that half-hearted tax avoidance is OK. Many of the tax laws are specifically designed to encourage avoidance, the most obvious example being the taxes on tobacco, alcohol and motor fuel, which are kept high to discourage their use.
At this point it's usual to quote Lord Clyde, who was a Privy Counsellor and Judge in tax cases:
No man in the country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel in his stores. The Inland Revenue is not slow, and quite rightly, to take every advantage which is open to it under the Taxing Statutes for the purposes of depleting the taxpayer's pocket. And the taxpayer is in like manner entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Inland Revenue.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
