Imagine that tomorrow you cancelled all your tax payments, and when a bill came from the Inland Revenue at the end of the year, you told them they could have ten percent of what’s due, or nothing. Try haggling. Try telling them you think it’s unfair to tax you because you made it all yourself. Try telling them that you “really” live in a Caribbean island, or Switzerland, or Jersey, and give them an address over there. Try pointing to some obscure loophole you found in the tax code and say it means you owe nothing. See what they say, and remember to send me a nice postcard from your prison cell.

Yet for the people who can most afford to pay their taxes – the super-rich, and massive corporations – this is how Britain works.