ABSTRACT
‘The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall’: an explanation once offered by former UK Chancellor Denis Healey. However, the difference in reality is often more complex, with numerous shades of grey in between these legal and illegal practices. These complexities are exploited by a tax avoidance industry dominated by accountants, lawyers and financial experts. This industry and those who both evade and avoid tax are now increasingly subjected to public ‘outing’, shame and avoidance by consumers — they are seen as being deviant organisations and individuals in a way that was not even thinkable until quite recently.
