Dan Neidle is calling out tax misbehaviour. We’re helping him stand up to bullies

We talk a lot about how the government should increase taxes on the super rich. We talk less about how the super rich dodge the taxes the government imposes. And that’s a pity, because tax dodging costs us billions – probably tens of billions – every year.

One of the simplest ways to dodge tax is to pay a tax lawyer to tell you that you don’t need to pay tax on some income. Because a lawyer has told you you don’t need to pay tax, you don’t declare it in your self-assessment tax return. And because HMRC checks only a tiny percentage of tax returns, you probably won’t get found out. And if you do, well, you can’t be criticised because a tax lawyer told you you could.

That tax lawyer gets paid huge sums for giving you that advice – which suits them. And the advice suits you – their fee is enormous but it is smaller than the tax you would otherwise have to pay. And it suits you even though it’s usually wrong because if you’re never caught, nobody ever knows it’s wrong. There’s nothing new in any of this. An article about this practice was the breakout moment for our founder, Jolyon Maugham – eleven years ago.

One of the people giving terrible advice is a tax barrister called Setu Kamal. (It’s important to name names, because sometimes a tax lawyers’ advice is used to mis-sell hopeless tax planning to people who have no way of knowing better. And publishing their names can serve as a warning: “don’t do what he says!”)

The tax lawyer and investigative journalist Dan Neidle has been writing about Kamal’s misdeeds for some time, naming him and performing what we think is an important public service. And Kamal has taken notice. He has written him a series of letters saying he plans to sue for defamation and demanding in excess of £1 million a year in damages for lost earnings.

We’re going to stand beside Neidle. His work is too important to be shut down. We’re giving him the services of Good Law Project’s own defamation lawyer. And we’ve written back to Kamal inviting him to follow through on his threats – which we think are bound to fail.

At Good Law Project we want to be tough on tax dodgers – and the causes of tax dodging. And tough on bullying too.

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