Tax and morality

In ‘Toe the line’ (Taxation 13 January 2022 page 20) John Gould produced a fine article looking at the Pandora Papers the latest ‘leak’ of confidential material and asked whether the role of the tax adviser now includes being a moral compass for clients.

For me this immediately raises two questions.

Is it correct that a tax adviser should impose their own moral code upon a client?

Is the correct measure of a moral code that used by the authorities and if so who determines and polices that?

We at WTT Consulting specialise in enquiry work. It is a given in almost all situations that by the time we are involved the transaction sparking the enquiry has been completed. There is likely to be a long tail to the transaction which can be dealt with in a number of...