Tax avoidance has always been in existance. The bigger issue is what the government do about it. Concentrating on the easy targets such as sole traders and the self employed does not gain the government much. Closing loopholes to the ones who avoid billions has a better net gain but is more difficult. I was once a private contractor with my own limited company and I used that to pay tax and national insurance as advised by my accountant. I see nothing either legally or morally wrong with that and it did not make much difference to our government. Large multi-nationals however do lose governments billions by finding loopholes that save them paying tax. The only way I see round that is for a global taxation authority to collect tax from these comapnies who avoid it and distribute the funds to those who need it. It would of course mean that those taxes go to those who really need it globally. I don't think much would go to the UK or US, Maybe that is the way it should be?