Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Dangers of Revenue's adversarial approach

Business leaders have been lining up to warn that they will re-domicile overseas unless the Government does something about supposedly oppressive levels of corporate taxation. In part, this is just sabre-rattling against a Government that looks to be on the run and will therefore agree almost anything that might stem the waterfall of bad news.

Some of it is also politically motivated. Business has fallen badly out of love with Labour. Some companies sense they can play a part in the Government's execution. Yet the underlying message is a serious one. Since the Inland Revenue was merged with Customs & Excise, there has been a noticeably more aggressive approach taken to tax collection.

Whether this is down to the more hard-nosed cultural influence of Customs & Excise, or is simply the result of instruction from on high to give no quarter in the search for extra sources of tax, is unclear. Yet whatever its causes, the newly adversarial approach is driving many business leaders to distraction. If ministers are serious about business, they have to call off the wolves.