Osborne’s tax avoidance clampdown

So, George Osborne has taken a look at the tax arrangements of some of the UK’s wealthiest people. And his reaction? ‘Shocked’, apparently — or so he’s told the Telegraph:

‘I was shocked to see that some of the very wealthiest people in the country have organised their tax affairs, and to be fair it’s within the tax laws, so that they were regularly paying virtually no income tax. And I don’t think that’s right. I’m talking about people right at the top. I’m talking about people with incomes of many millions of pounds a year. The general principle is that people should pay income tax and that includes people with the highest incomes.’

‘There are hundreds of people earning millions per year who are barely paying 20 per cent tax, forget 40 per cent, forget 50 per cent, forget 30 per cent.