Let’s talk about tax (and tax avoidance).

Last week the government announced it was building yet another prison. Another moral and fiscal failure. Skilfully continuing to over turn the falling crime rate dividend we had in 2013 before the bail laws changed. 

Also last week a reader made a comment about how wasn’t tax avoidance ‘legal’. 

Another such observation on tax avoidance came from Denis Healey who said that the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall. She said trying to link two quite independent things together.

Now both maybe right in the United Kingdom but they really don’t directly translate to the New Zealand situation. So being the public spirited individual I am I thought I’d have a go at a layman’s guide to tax avoidance for New Zealanders. And no more mention of prison stuff – promise.

First of all tax avoidance is a term defined in the Income Tax Act. It comes in and overrides everything else in the Income Tax Act. So any provison in the Act theoretically runs the risk of tax avoidance coming in and saying – ‘you know what’ just kidding – bog off.

And  it is defined in a way  – directly or indirectly altering the incidence of tax  – that could mean that anything you do that has the effect of reducing your tax could be caught. This could mean cutting your hours; paying off your mortgage instead of putting the money on term deposit; selling dividend paying shares to buy a car all could be classed as tax avoidance. As they were all plans or understandings – where the result was less tax was paid than before or less tax was paid than could have been.

Mmm yeah. 

Now as that couldn’t possibly be right the courts  – helped by the Commissioner taking cases – has said it only applies when the outcome wouldn’t have been intended by Parliament.  Right. Awesome. So much clearer now. Thanks for playing.

To be fair there is a little more to it than that. But largely it all boils down to:

1) strip away the clever stuff

2) work out tax result on stripped down ‘arrangement’

3) compare 2) to what went of tax return

4) Difference is tax avoidance.

Now most of the dispute between taxpayers and Commissioner is over what if any is the ‘clever stuff’.

In our friend Penny and Hopper putting a business into a trust was never challenged – coz you know creditor protection or keeping it from the missus wasn’t ‘clever’ it was just like ‘commercially acceptable’. In that case what was challenged as ‘clever’ was the trust paying the highly skilled doctors the same salary as they would earn in the public system – I mean Dude seriously who works for that? 

The other recent case that made the tax community super mad – Alesco – involved the New Zealand business being funded by an optional convertible note. Now dear readers you may say ‘ ah yes I’ve read  I choose you Pikachu ‘ an optional convertible note now that is ‘clever’ and so that is tax avoidance. Glad you are keeping up – but no. No what was clever here was that the option should have no value as Alesco Australia already owned all the shares – Duh. Other highlights of that case included the taxpayer arguing that while it was tax avoidance  – it was Australian not New Zealand tax avoidance. All class.

Compare these then to the cutting your hours; paying off your mortgage or buying a car from savings. Nothing clever there – so long as that is all you are doing. Bit like our gentlemen below.

Now of course there is a line between a bit of tax planning  – paying off your mortage before earning taxable income; funding a project with deductible debt or even investing offshore and receiving an exempt dividend – and tax avoidance. And because there is this line there will always be a Tax Administration and tax practitioners.

The thing is though that even if it is ‘tax avoidance’ it is a Civil thing and so no one goes to jail. They can lose the tax benefits; get hit with a 100% penalty plus interest of 8% – but no prison wall. Not even Home D.

Tax evasion however game on – Criminal charges defo in the mix.  Now generally there is nothing clever with tax evasion. Just dirty fraudulent or deceptive behaviour: taking money out of the till; cashies – yes cashies; billing for a lower/higher number than is actually the case. Here jail time  is totes on the cards and does happen. As well as a penalty of 150% and interest. And yes there is a line between avoidance and evasion too.

So is tax avoidance legal if Wikiquote says so too? Dunno it certainly isn’t criminal but does have high penalties. 

So keep away from the clever sh@te and my former colleagues will probs keep away from you.

Namaste