TS wonders if there is some sinister plot on tax avoidance being perpetrated by HMRC? It may sound like a silly question, but after a spate of post-Budget articles suggesting that carousel fraud is tax avoidance, it did start our mind ticking over.

Some have said that Gordon Brown’s measures to tackle the fraud are an anti-avoidance move. Perhaps the government is content, however, to blur the line between evasion and avoidance itself. Despite accusing some firms of treating carousel fraud as avoidance, it did include the changes in a list of anti-avoidance measures it was pursuing. If this continues ‘avoision’ could become a well used phrase before too long.