What’s the difference between ‘tax evasion’ and ‘tax avoidance’?

I used to avoid paying tax. I opened an Isa for my pitiful savings, for example, to avoid tax on the interest. But now I daren’t say I avoid tax because HMRC is encouraging people to report me for it. ‘Report tax fraud or avoidance,’ is the headline on a public-service government website. ‘Report a person or business you think is not paying enough tax or is committing another type of fraud,’ it urges.

In the past, it seemed clear. The Oxford English Dictionary says: ‘tax avoidance n. the arrangement of financial affairs so as to reduce tax liability within the law. tax evasion n. the reduction of tax payments by misstatement of income or other illegal means.’

The definition offered by HMRC is more circumspect: ‘Tax avoidance involves bending the rules of the tax system to try to gain a tax advantage that parliament never intended.