Alexander James Green from the University of Southampton’s Wessex Scene writes that tax avoiders are real criminals and the Jimmy Carr scandal was polished over by politicians:

With beautiful views of the French Alps, ski resorts aplenty and the world’s third highest life expectancy; Lake Geneva, Switzerland is a pretty good place to live. The rich and famous clearly think so – Shania Twain, Phil Collins, Michael Schumacher, Boris Becker, Roger Moore and Ingvar Kamprad (Ikea Founder) are just a few of the celebrities who reside around Europe’s most scenic lake. Of course, it might also help that Switzerland is a tax haven.

Yet, as Jimmy Carr showed us, you don’t even have to move abroad to avoid tax nowadays. Last week, it was reported that comedian Carr was found to be sheltering around £3.3million a year from being taxed through the use of a Jersey-based tax avoidance arrangement, paying as little at 1% tax on his earnings. The K2 scheme allows money to be paid into an offshore trust, which then pays you a small salary with the rest being loaned back, allowing someone with an income of £280,000 to reduce their tax bill from £127,000 to just 3,500.

Full story here.