Avoiding taxes is not illegal. Indeed, in some cases there is deliberate encouragement to business or individuals to undertake certain activities by giving them sympathetic tax treatment. But some avoidance is increasingly sophisticated and far from the intent of Parliament in passing the relevant laws. Such avoidance shall be discouraged by anti-avoidance measures where appropriate. The reforms will be designed to ensure that we minimise to the extent possible the tax burden on the citizen.
All taxes impose two kinds of burden in addition to the actual tax itself.
The first is the burden placed on both individuals and businesses in complying with the requirements of the tax law. In particular, the effect of a high compliance cost of a tax is in reality to make the tax itself seem much heavier. The second is the burden imposed indirectly by the public administration of our taxes. The Government will seek where necessary to redesign our taxes so as to cut down on the need for unnecessary administrative costs at all levels. A primary aim in designing the reforms of our consumption taxes, is to remove as many individuals and business units as possible from collection of taxes.