More "Inadvertent" Loopholes Allow Tax Avoiders to Get Away With It Again.

The Tories have come to the shock realization that their measures to prevent their wealthy mates from squirreling away money in Switzerland in order to avoid paying tax have come to nothing after the Swiss patiently explained to our government that they could bugger off. "Try as we might," George Osborne explained to our reporter, "we simply cannot close the colossal loopholes we've deliberately created in our tax laws. We've tried, we really have, but its all too much for us. The problem with loopholes is that they have a life of their own and the more we try to close them the wider they seem to get. Essentially they are a force of nature and cannot be controlled by us poor mortals. I simply can't understand why rich people who avoided paying tax at 50p in droves aren't queuing up to pay tax at the new 45p band." The Treasury was equally apologetic; "We really are sorry that the £3.2 billion we thought we could get off our rich mates just isn't coming after all. It's all a great shame but we think we can make up the shortfall by flogging off parts of the NHS to the same rich mates who, try as they might, just can't find a way to pay their fair share of taxes. It's all very unfortunate. Still, we should all look on the bright side - at least our rich pals are happy and that's the main thing."