Agreed. I'm too lazy to look up the numbers here but I'd guess both are staggering, and probably opposite - benefit cheating outweighing tax cheating.......
Of course the oppresively high tax rate is probably largely to blame in the U.K., but it's not an excuse for fraud.
Not really. The reason so much tax evasion goes on is because of economic deregulation that the Tories decided to set out on in the 1980s. We had a 95% top rate for much of our post-war history and there wasn't as much tax evasion then (it was a much fairer rate than 50% too)
when you use the term "tax evasion" I assume you are referring to something that is illegal, correct? if that is the case, deregulation would not have increased tax evasion, though it may have made some things that were considered tax evasion at one point to no longer be considered as such.
and if you are referring to legal "tax avoidance," then of course that is in a different category from fraud.
