Well, according to the media another celebrity has been caught with their fingers in the Exchequer's till and should be punished accordingly.
There are time's when the press's response to such news relating to tax is a little more akin to Granville at Arkwright's till! One would, and should, expect better of our free, objective and independent news outlets in the UK, but alas it is not so.
Yes, I am of course talking about Mr Barlow and his chums (who indeed I myself have poked a little fun at on twitter).
However, what the media seem to have lost sight of here is that Gary et al have not actually done anything wrong.
Yes they have invested (presumably upon advice) into a product that provided tax advantages, and believe it or not people do this every day, indeed certain forms of which the Government actually encourage you to invest in, such as the Enterprise Investment Scheme.
There have always been people who look to minimise their clients' tax bills, and some of those will go a little too far in creating schemes that really do push the envelope of what is acceptable to the world in general. However, it is rarely the investor who is at fault, and let us not forget here that this scheme, as with Chris Moyles and Jimmy Carr's recent outings, isn't actually illegal. The courts have simply adjudged that the scheme does not work, and so the tax relieved under the scheme now has to be paid back to HM Revenue & Customs. Also, let us not forget that this was not a scheme set up purely for the Take That stars, many, many people would have invested in this (for various reasons of course).
However, it is unfortunate that the facts get in the way of "selling" the news, and make for nowhere near as sensational a story. The real tragedy though is that stories like this put people off the idea of considering their own tax affairs as all forms of tax planning begin to be considered "immoral", and one would have to question whether this is indeed the central motive with such coverage.
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