The Labour leader Ed Miliband has said he stands by comments made in the Commons, accusing a Tory peer of tax avoidance activities.
He was speaking after Lord Fink acknowledged he did take "vanilla, bland" tax avoidance measures.
He had threatened to sue Mr Miliband after the Labour leader waded into the row over alleged tax avoidance linked to HSBC's Swiss subsidiary.
Mr Miliband named Lord Fink in the Commons as a holder of an account at the Geneva branch and accused David Cameron of being "a dodgy Prime Minister surrounded by dodgy donors".
Lord Fink was quick to brand Mr Miliband's claim as "untrue and defamatory" and challenged him to repeat it in public where he would not have the protection of parliamentary privilege so he could take legal action.
But in an interview with the Evening Standard said he did not want to sue Mr Miliband, and acknowledged he had engaged in tax avoidance, although he said this was at "the mildest end of the spectrum".
"What I did ... was at the vanilla, bland, end of the spectrum," he insisted.
And he said he had rejected expert advice that he could save a fortune by adopting "aggressive" avoidance measures.
Lord Fink told the newspaper: "I don't even want to sue Ed Miliband. In my life I have been libelled a few dozen times and I have never sued anybody, even for some comments that were quite outrageous.
"f he simply uses the words 'Lord Fink did ordinary tax avoidance' then no, I couldn't sue him. But if he made the statement 'dodgy' about my bank account, that was potentially libellous. That was the issue I took exception to.
"I also took exception to him saying I had questions to answer. In fact, whenever anyone has put questions to me I have answered them."
He went on: "The expression tax avoidance is so wide that everyone does tax avoidance at some level."
Mr Miliband, in a speech in north London, said he stood by his claim Lord Fink had been involved in "tax avoidance activities".
And he called on Prime Minister David Cameron to "say what steps he is going to take to find out about the tax avoidance activities of Lord Fink".
He said: "It's true that individuals and companies avoid tax.
"Part of the answer is to reduce the options for that happening so there's a responsibility on government."
Launching Labour's education policy for the May general election at his former school in north London, Mr Miliband accused the coalition Government of failing to "act properly against tax avoidance".
The Labour leader said: "Yesterday a Conservative donor challenged me to stand by what I said in the House of Commons. I do.
"And believe it or not, now today he confirmed it as well. He has just said, and I quote 'I didn't object to his use of the word tax avoidance, because tax avoidance - everyone does it'.
"David Cameron must explain why he appointed a treasurer of the Conservative Party who boasts about engaging in tax avoidance and thinks it is something that everyone does.
"This the big choice facing our country - a choice between an old economy defended by this Government in which a blind eye is turned to tax avoidance, and a new economy built by investing in the talents and education of all our young people."
Mr Miliband told Sky News: "The difference between today and yesterday is Lord Fink is saying what I said about Lord Fink.
"When somebody says I am going to sue the Labour leader because he says I am engaged in tax avoidance and the next day says I am not going to sue him because I have engaged in tax avoidance, I'd say that's a pretty open and shut case."
But responding to Mr Miliband's comments, Lord Fink said: "Yesterday I challenged Ed Miliband to repeat the accusations he made in the Commons - that I used an HSBC bank account to avoid tax and that I was a 'dodgy donor'. He did not.
"This is a major climbdown by a man who is willing to smear without getting his facts straight."
Meanwhile, the man who lifted the lid on the HSBC tax scandal has said he first raised concerns about suspect practices at the bank in 2008 - two years earlier than previously thought.
In an interview with Sky News, Herve Falciani said he emailed and called Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs seven years ago.
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