Clause 19 - Disclosure of VAT avoidance schemes
Finance Bill
4:45 pm
Mr Quentin Davies (Grantham and Stamford, Conservative)
It makes no sense to introduce the clause and schedule, which are rather extraordinary—and we must discuss that—with examples of abuses, as the Economic Secretary has done, unless he needs the provisions because there is at present no other remedy against the specific abuses that he listed. If the abuses—I agree that they are abuses—are legal under the present law, we may need to change the law, but if they are illegal under the present regime, the provision is irrelevant and it is wrong to use that as excuse for the clause and the schedule.