COMMENT: They don't pay tax in paradise

But the publication of the Paradise Papers - 13.4 million documents leaked from the law firm and corporate services provider Appleby, which specialises in tax avoidance - revealed that not all folk are so relaxed or philosophical about paying their dues.

Yet again the lid has been lifted on the lives of the super-rich (remember the Panama Papers, anyone?), like raising a stone to expose the same one per cent of humanity getting fat at everyone else’s expense. We know they’re hiding under there but we always seem to forget about them.

The revelations in the Paradise Papers, however, give us no choice but to face a stark fact: corporations and the very rich are systematically avoiding taxes. And the very system of taxation ordinary people trust is letting us down.

Let me say from the start, Appleby and their clients are not acting illegally. To me, that is the most disturbing aspect of the whole greedy, seedy business.

Here are just a few choice titbits dragged into the light of day by the leaked papers.

Millions of pounds from the Queen’s private estate has been invested in a Cayman Islands fund as part of an offshore portfolio that has never before been disclosed, including the retailer BrightHouse, a firm criticised for exploiting thousands of poor families and vulnerable people. Last month, BrightHouse was ordered to pay £14.8m in compensation to 249,000 customers, after accusations of overcharging, and using hard sell tactics on people with mental health problems and learning disabilities.

Meanwhile, Apple, again perfectly legally, shifted key parts of its empire to Jersey as part of a complex rearrangement that has allowed it to keep an ultra-low tax rate, according to an analysis of Paradise Papers documents.

We learned also that the international property empire of the dukes of Westminster pumped dividends worth millions of pounds into secretive companies in Bermuda and Panama. Incidentally, Hugh Grosvenor, the current Duke of Westminster, became Britain’s youngest billionaire after his father’s death last year. Thanks to careful planning by his predecessors, the 26-year-old inherited the sprawling Grosvenor Group without having to pay the 40 per cent death duties imposed on most British taxpayers. So much for living in a meritocracy.

Other examples are numerous. Suffice to say, we live in a society that actively allows tax havens like Jersey or the Isle of Man or the Cayman Islands to operate.

Politicians may criticise tax avoidance - and indeed do. David Cameron called tax avoidance “morally wrong” and George Osborne labelled tax avoiders “leeches on society”.

But fine words butter no parsnips. The reality is that HMRC is not doing its job properly and that is a political choice by the Government.

For example, in 2009 HMRC set up a specialist unit to investigate “high net worth individuals”. But when the House of Commons public accounts committee examined the unit’s work this year, they uncovered it was today raising £1bn less than when it was set up. Of the 72 investigations into wealthy individuals opened by HMRC in the five years to 2016, only one resulted in a prosecution. Such failures can hardly have been helped by the Government’s decision to shed 40 per cent of its staff in the last decade.

Let us not pretend our lives in York are unaffected by tax dodging. For years we have been told that there is not enough money for social care, the NHS, schools, libraries. The reality is that we will always have third-rate public services while the wealthy are allowed to get away with not contributing their fair share.

Important philosophical questions should be levelled at our tax-evading elite. How much money does a human being need to be happy? Let alone deserve? These questions should be at the heart of a fair taxation policy which benefits all citizens.

No man is an island. It is high time we shut down offshore tax havens like Jersey, Bermuda and the Isle of Man for everyone’s good.