Following the outcry over tax avoidance schemes Anthony Werner was invited to submit a guest blog to the Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative (GCGI) site which was established by Dr Kamran Mofid, author of Globalisation for the Common Good.

The Times in London has caused an outcry by publishing a series of articles on the secretive tax avoidance industry, revealing how the rich and famous have resorted to complex schemes. The problem of tax avoidance is nothing new. The problem is that it is only the rich who can afford these schemes. Years ago a retired judge told me that, when he was a top earning QC, his accountant had said to him: ‘Now, Sir Kenneth, you are earning enough not to pay tax’.

Is there a fairer way? Some twenty years ago Dr Ronald Burgess published a book entitled Public Revenue without Taxation. Impossible we might say – after all Benjamin Franklin pointed out that there are only two things certain in life: Death and Taxation.