George Bernard Shaw, subject to punitive income tax in postwar Britain, declared his occupation as “tax collector on 2½ per cent commission”. Some companies must know how he felt. In a modern economy, most taxes are collected and paid by businesses. Expenditure on tobacco and on petrol, and the apparent revenue of companies that sell them, is mostly tax. The principal taxes in almost all developed societies are income tax, payroll tax and value added tax or sales tax, and all three are mostly collected by businesses.

The government collects tax more cheaply from a few large companies than from millions of personal taxpayers. Governments could not collect 40 per cent of national income in any other way. The few taxes for which individuals have to write out cheques – mostly property taxes – arouse hostility disproportionate to the revenue they raise.