Responsible tax behaviour does not mean ‘voluntarily’ paying more tax than is ‘legally’ payable

In ordinary circumstances the degree to which one’s behaviour is ‘responsible’ is not determined by reference to measurable outcomes. A person’s speedometer is not a measure of how responsibly she is driving nor is the fact that she has killed or injured zero other road-users. Ordinarily one determines that a person is conducting herself responsibly by assessing her behaviour in the round having in mind the degree to which she generates risk for herself for her passengers and for other road-users rather than the degree to which measurable outcomes on some particular scale eventuate.

There nonetheless appears to be an assumption operating in the public debate about tax avoidance to the effect that behaving more responsibly as regards tax means ‘voluntarily paying more tax than is legally necessary’.

As...