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Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Margaret Hodge MP, said: ‘Promoters of 'boutique' tax-avoidance schemes like the one brought to our attention by the case of Jimmy Carr, are running rings around HMRC.’

‘They create schemes which exploit loopholes in legislation or abuse available tax reliefs such as those intended to encourage investment in British films, and then sign up as many clients as possible, knowing that it will take time for HMRC to change the law and shut the scheme down,’ she added.

With such schemes costing the Treasury at least £5bn each year, Ms Hodge said HMRC ‘has got to get much more robust in its approach’.

 

Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of tax at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, warns that it is difficult to draw a line between acceptable tax planning and unacceptable tax avoidance.

‘There isn't a clear cliff edge between what you could say is acceptable tax planning and what is unacceptable tax avoidance. I think there's some difficulty in terms of where do you pitch it in terms of where you name and shame,’ he said.

A spokesperson for HMRC said: ‘the government recently announced an extra £77m in HMRC funding to tackle evasion and aggressive avoidance; we have also consulted on strengthening the regulations around these schemes; and, for the first time ever, this government is introducing a general anti-abuse rule which will make it even harder for people to avoid paying their share of tax.’