UK banks are this evening under severe pressure from UK government to sign up to a voluntary tax code which would see various sanctions if any of the UK banking community are found to have made use of schemes to reduce their tax liabilities. While has been little comment from UK banking industry as a whole it seems that the UK government is trying to railroad UK financial companies into signing up to what is in essence a voluntary arrangement.

Quite why the government is looking to introduce a voluntary arrangement, which would see a report produced by the Revenue and Customs agency for those seeking to attempt to avoid tax, is a mystery as they could prosecute the alleged perpetrators in the court room. There is a suspicion that the UK government has left a number of "holes" in various taxation regulations which have been exploited over the years. By trying to bring together the whole industry against these various schemes the hope is that everyone will sign up to the voluntary arrangement and introduce a form of self-regulation.

However, if you are not acting illegally, although you may well be pushing the boundaries of the tax regulations, why would you readily give up the chance of saving hundreds of millions of pounds of tax payments?

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