Tories and corporations look out for each other

The bulk of Tory donations come from the City where tax avoidance is rife, and the decision by Barclays to close its Structured Markets division ,where 100 employees make the bank £1 billion a year, is proof enough that tax avoidance is a major business.

But there's more. New ideas like the Patent Box and the older Controlled Foreign Companies rules were designed by Treasury committees with representatives from tax-avoiding businesses like Vodaphone and HSBC giving advice. The result is corporation tax as low as 5.2 per cent.

It's reasonable of Tory MP Stephen MacPartland to want greater transparency (M Star February 12), don't we all, but he must know that sacking tax inspectors reveals the government's true intentions.

It's ironic too that at the same time as journalists are threatening strike action at the BBC, the corporation is guilty of paying many of its presenters and some employees through companies specifically designed to enable income tax to be avoided.

And where is the opposition in all of this?

Last April Cameron announced that after the May elections he would make public the tax accounts of all leading members of the Cabinet. When he didn't, the silence from Labour was deafening.

Bernie Evans

Liverpool