Poll: Is Jimmy Carr and Gary Barlow's tax avoidance morally wrong?
Published Jun 22 2012, 13:43 BST | By Mayer Nissim
Jimmy Carr and Gary Barlow dominated the front pages this week as details of their tax avoidance were splashed on the front pages.Even Prime Minister David Cameron stepped in to call Carr's arrangements "dodgy" and "morally wrong", though Dave was more tight-lipped when it came to Conservative Party supporter Gary Barlow OBE's seemingly similar situation.
© PA Images / Ian West/PA Archive
© Dave Thompson/PA Wire/Press Association Images
Twitter has been a-storm with the arguments for ("We'd all do it if we could", "He's just hired an accountant") and against ("No we wouldn't!" or, as Lily Allen said, "Worse than benefit fraud") and here at Digital Spy we wanted to know what you thought about the issue.
Carr has claimed to have made a "terrible error of judgement" and to have exited the controversial K2 scheme.
But were Carr, Barlow and the rest sensible for looking after number one? Or should they feel more of a responsibility to pay the appropriate level of taxes on their income? Vote in the poll below to have your say.
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You can't apply the term morals to such an artificial government created legal issue. Morals should only be related to wider issues of right and wrong, which would exist regardless of even is the current government and establishment did not. For what it's worth anyway, tax avoidance is just that - it is not illegal. Tax evasion is, tax avoidance isn't. It's naked hypocrisy to claim anyone in the same situation wouldn't do just the same because we all would.
June 24th 2012 at 12:36pm(+1 like)
Speak for yourself. The less the wealthy pay, the more everyone else has to pay, and that includes you.
June 24th 2012 at 11:44pm
Of COURSE it's wrong. Normal people have to pay their taxes; so should rich people. If they did, the country might not be in such a dreadful state as it is. That said, Cameron is still has absolutely no right to call Jimmy Carr's actions morally wrong, considering his own behaviour.
June 23rd 2012 at 11:30pm(+1 like)
To be honest - it's the governments fault for having this loophole in the first place - according to an alleged member of staff from the HMRC who has commented somewhere else on this site - I'm not a big fan of Jimmy but he has not done anything wrong - if I was on millions a year - I am sure that I will be looking at ways to pay minimum tax. So i'm saying no Jimmy has not done anything wrong. Just had to watch 8 of 10 cats to see what the hype was about - and I could see that Jimmy has regretted the decisions he's made. We all like to pay minimum tax but we are all sucked in to the ridiculous PAYE scheme unless your rich where you don't have to.
June 23rd 2012 at 3:32pm(+1 like)
Was meant to say after HMRC comment - that he has not done anything wrong.
June 23rd 2012 at 3:33pm
Of course it was wrong, but he's not exactly the first to do it. Nor is he responsible of the biggest tax avoidance. He just had to misfortune of being the first to be found out and harpooned by the media. Observe how Tory boy Barlow gets away with it in the PM's eyes because he's a supporter of his lot.
June 22nd 2012 at 3:07pm(+1 like)