Letter to a disappointed client

My dear client

Jonathan Swift once suggested that people should pay tax in proportion to their virtue beauty and sexual prowess and should be allowed to self assess.

Now I can see how that might work. But it is harder to have a rule that you pay less tax the more virtuous you are: everyone thinks they are virtuous and the tax benefit merely strengthens the belief.

We all know that along with sportsmen and 'popular musical entertainers' (as the barristers call them) serial entrepreneurs like your good self are among the most virtuous people of our time. ('New Labour — new money' and all that; whereas it was old money — base cost — that benefited from indexation.)

But tax avoiders are among the main modern music hall villains.

Who is to tell you apart bearing in mind that in...