Quote: SBR "Yup. Just like paying into a pension by salary sacrifice or the various Income Tax allowances and reliefs. There are [iloads[/i of legalised methods of tax avoidance. None of which are any different from a moral standpoint.'"
They are completely different form a moral standpoint because its blindingly obvious what the differences are between the situations. The government expressly grants you tax relief on pension contributions as an incentive to save for a pension. They have not deliberately set things up for the self employed so they can avoid tax. That is no different than "doing a Jimmy Carr". It was obvious the money that was paid to the K2 company were his wages for his services. It is equally obvious a contractor's company is getting the contractors wages for his services. They should be therefore taxed as income tax not capital gains. The fact there are things like tax relief on pension contributions so this is the same is a ridiculous argument. We are dealing with income and income should be taxed as such.
If its OK for contractors to pay themselves via dividends to lower their tax then its OK for Jimmy Carr to do what he was doing. Clearly neither are morally acceptable or they both are.
