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IT IS not correct to say, as many do, that tax evasion is illegal but tax avoidance is legal. The lawyers and accountants who manage avoidance schemes—which often exploit loopholes to gain a tax advantage that legislators never intended—work in a legal grey area. Until courts offer an opinion, the people managing and using the most exotic tax structures cannot know if they are operating on the right side of the law. All this trickery has a heavy cost to the state. In 2013-14 tax avoidance cost the British government £2.7 billion ($4.3 billion), according to official estimates. As part of a wider crackdown, the government is now going after those who make all this possible: the “pinstriped mafia” of tax advisers.

Currently, advisers and their associates need not worry excessively about whether the tax-avoidance schemes that they sell to clients are legal or not. If such a scheme is found to be on the wrong side of the law, it is usually not the advisers but the clients who take the heat, even if they thought they were doing the right thing. Popstars and sports icons are among those who have been publicly skewered for taking part in such schemes.