It is still difficult to improve on the tax objective suggested by the French 17th century statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to extract from the goose the maximum of feathers with the minimum of hissing.

The typical UK taxpayer is aware of two or three salient items: how much he or she has to pay in tax and national insurance; the headline basic rate of income tax and council tax. Gordon Brown, the chancellor, has been able to take advantage by raising revenue from other items that attract less attention, for instance by not raising the thresholds at which both income tax and the higher surtax rates begin in line with incomes. Now, however, the goose has tumbled to the trick and the hissing is becoming louder.