Three weeks on from the Budget, the row over the pasty tax rumbles on. Following yesterday’s summit in Truro, Cornish MPs from all three parties are reportedly planning to form a coalition to prevent the measure passing through Parliament. Meanwhile, the Lib Dem MP for Torbay, Adrian Sanders, has openly called for traders to avoid the tax. He writes on his blog:
I think there’s a way round this if every business in Devon & Cornwall stopped selling hot pasties. Once the customer has paid for their cold pasty they hand it back to the shop and ask if they wouldn’t mind putting it in the microwave or in the oven for collection later!
The key is for the shop not to advertise such a service and for us – the pasty eating customers – to ensure we are all in on the secret.
It’s a not-so-secret call for mass tax avoidance. Can we expect George Osborne, who has described “aggressive tax avoidance” as “morally repugnant” [even while rewarding it] to come down “like a ton of bricks” on Sanders?
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Hat-tip: James Ball.
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