Tax avoidance is rare, says Vodafone

Date: 8th May 2008

A leading figure at Vodafone has claimed that tax avoidance by multi-national companies is "very rare".

Joel Walters, a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and The Association of Taxation Technician's journal tax adviser, said that due to the large figures involved in corporation tax people often find themselves blinded by the numbers.

He went on to say that he felt people overestimate the amount of tax that they feel these companies should be paying.

He said: "The first thing I'd say is that tax avoidance, defined as not paying the amount of tax the law requires, is actually very rare."

Mr Walters comments come as the Guardian issues an apology to supermarket chain Tesco over its reporting of the company's tax affairs. The newspaper wrongly printed that a number of Tesco's financial schemes were designed to avoid paying taxes.