Folkiedave, it doesn't matter a damn if tax is deducted at source or not, the same means of mitigating the amount you pay in tax is available to all.

Been a long time since I looked into it but you can have up to seventeen and a quarter per cent of your "net relevant income" (i.e your gross earned pay) tax free, but you have to put that into a pension, the money is spent, but it is spent to your longterm advantage and interest. Now having reduced your taxable income by anything up to 17% many would find that that drops their overall tax burden quite considerably, you do of course have to submit a tax return form and claim your pre-paid tax back.

I can never remember which is illegal and which isn't tax avoidance I believe is legal, whereas tax evasion is not. A good accountant will give excellent advice, his fee is automatically tax deductable and he/she can save anybody hundreds if not thousands in tax - all perfectly aboveboard and legal and available to all.

The Vestey's by the way have all their financial dealings done through Monaco, not the UK and have done so for a great number of years. It's the one big flaw when it comes to the hard-over leftists yelling tax the rich. Trudeau in Canada once put it rather well, he asked, "If you are a multi-millionare and you can live in Canada and pay 15% tax or live in the USA and pay 20%, where do you live?" The answer he got back was Canada. "OK, so we tax the rich, you're the same multi-millionaire and you can now live in Canada and pay 25% tax or live in the USA and pay 20% where do you live?" The answer he got back was the USA. "So by taxing the rich as the left advocates, those with the money you want to tax move and although you've increased the rate of tax your income goes down because you end up collecting less."