Government loses landmark tax case, but ...

... Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs are not taking a simple matter of losing a case in the House of Lords lying down. A Treasury spokesman has indicated it is going to bring forward changes in the tax laws to make what until now has been perfectly legal into something which is illegal.

This whole case seems to me to boil down to an assertion by this [socialist] government that it may dictate how private enterprises may distribute their net income (i.e. profits) and decree that certain classes of shareholders have less rights than others, because their income is paid to them in the form of dividends and the level of their income places them in a lower tax bracket than certain other shareholders who actually work for the business, and the government thinks it should be able to tax the income of the lower-earning shareholder at the higher rate at which the higher-earning shareholder is taxed. The motive for the changes the government proposes is described as achieving 'fairness'; I can think of another word for it!