In this age of digital immediacy and trite commentary, thinking and questioning seem to have become rare commodities. It may always have been so but everyday life is full of assumptions that could benefit from fresh examination, even from debate in schools following the wonderful educational reforms.

As you’ll know, there’s been a lot of kafuffle lately around some papers – the Panama and Paradise ones, not this illustrious rag. But no-one behind the leaks has asked how ethical taxation itself is and it’s doubtful if there’s any such debate at the MRA, for obvious reasons. While the Papers may have usefully exposed cases of unexplained wealth, there’s an undercurrent to the leaks suggesting that being wealthy is itself immoral. Dr Marx must be laughing all the way from Highgate Cemetery to Hades.

Jealousy seems as strong a motive as any behind the publication of the Papers – otherwise the investigators would just have highlighted cases of inexplicable wealth. As for the public, the attraction seems to be a prurient interest in things that are none of their business, encouraged by media trolls. After all, most people want to avoid paying more tax than absolutely necessary. Tax avoiders are not tax evaders unlike many paid with bags of cash, like some lawyers, doctors, plumbers, electricians, street and market traders – and many others.

The Greeks saw nothing wrong in wealth itself even though much wealth came from owning slaves, the more the merrier, frowned upon nowadays but still widely prevalent in various countries. What was more important was what people did with it. They would certainly have been disconcerted by a consumer society more concerned with the latest smartphones than with beautifying everything in sight, including their bodies, homes and streets. And let’s not forget the Athenians did provide the poor with jobs, paid for from indirect taxes, levied on possessions such as houses, slaves, cattle, wines, and hay. For obscure reasons, country folk here believe only town dwellers should pay housing taxes. There was no income tax but they also levied taxes on foreign traders, and on exports and imports, and, thanks to their large navy, they collected protection money from allies, difficult to emulate here as it requires more than the odd coastguard vessel. Incidentally, prostitutes had to register with the state and pay a hefty licence fee. There’s a thought for a nice little money earner.

The most unethical aspect of taxation is that much money is wasted thanks to public-sector inefficiency, which politicos are terrified to rectify as it would mean massive job losses, especially amongst those appointed for the wrong reasons. State regulation may be needed to avoid private-sector abuse, but politicos and bureaucrats can’t run businesses efficiently for love or money. Indeed, taxation is at best a very arbitrary affair. Admirables certainly can’t pick and choose what their money’s used for. It’s rather like going into laboutik and being told that you have to buy the whole shop even if you only need bread and water. As in so many areas, there’s a lot of fresh thinking needed.

By the way, your identity seems a closely-guarded secret. Are you the Man with No Name, like the lead character in the film For a Few Dollars More? Mount Olympos can’t even lay its hands on a recent MRA annual report. Surely, it can’t be late? Anyway, I’ll be back shortly with more on the subject – providing you or the Commies don’t get me first.

Yours sincerely,

Epi PHRON