Are you a tax avoider? Have you stashed money in an ISA so the Government won’t eat away at your meagre savings?

Have you ever paid cash-in-hand for the occasional job around the house to keep the cost down because you’re a bit skint after consecutive wage freezes or the drying up of your zero-hours contract?

Perhaps your conscience is pricked by the revelations from the leaked Paradise Papers, 13million documents from the offshore law firm Appleby.

Some claim, after all, it’s hypocritical and unfair to criticise the super-wealthy when you may have indulged in a little gentle tax avoidance yourself.

Trump think dodging tax commitments makes him 'smart'
Trump think dodging tax commitments makes him 'smart'

In any case, those nose-bleedingly rich sorts are doing nothing illegal, merely paying very expensive accountants to pore over complicated financial regulations and find a loophole to exploit. Clever them, eh?

That’s the Trump argument. The president managed to get elected despite being accused of avoiding federal income tax. “That makes me smart,” he said.

Utter bunkum. Those of us who slip the window cleaner a fiver are nothing like those multimillionaires and multinationals who are moving eye-watering sums around sun-kissed tax havens to keep themselves as rich as possible.

In 2017-18, the maximum any of us could invest in a tax-efficient ISA (and
we’ve been encouraged by the Government to do so) is £20,000. ISA investors
are not part of the problem.

We shouldn’t let anyone tell us otherwise. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estimate they lose about £2.7billion a year through legal tax avoidance and £4.4billion through illegal tax evasion – £7.1billion in total.

The Labour Party say even the legally avoided tax would pay for 365 schools and 21 hospitals.

In the very same way that paying tax is a straightforward part of life for us everyday sorts, avoiding it – by legal means, they are at great pains to point out – has become such an accepted course of action for the super-rich, they’re shocked to be outed for doing it.

But when they allow themselves to be involved in complex, secret schemes, they are not cleverly outsmarting a punitive government, they’re cheating us.

The St Enoch centre in Glasgow
The St Enoch centre in Glasgow

They’re cheating everyone who relies on a state-funded infrastructure, who sends their kids to state-funded schools, gets treated by state-funded doctors, is protected by a state-funded legal system and supported by state-funded welfare.

They’re cheating everyone on PAYE who pays VAT on purchases, pays council tax and road tax to keep the country going. We don’t enjoy it either but we understand it.

As does the private equity firm who bought Glasgow’s St Enoch Centre in the heart of our biggest city.

Yet they are alleged to have avoided stamp duty of nearly £8million and corporate tax on around £10million annual rental income.

Apple reportedly hold around £192billion in untaxed cash in Jersey and F1 champ Lewis Hamilton allegedly avoided the £3.3million Vat bill on his £16.5million candy apple red jet.

Lewis Hamilton is rolling in it
Lewis Hamilton is rolling in it

Anti-poverty campaigner Bono is alleged to have used a company in the tax haven of Malta in order to invest in a shopping centre in Lithuania.

All of this is entirely in keeping with the letter of the law but definitely not with the spirit.

Even the Queen finds herself exposed, with about £10million of her fortune reported to be invested offshore.

Most likely Her Maj had absolutely no idea about this but she must surely be both appalled and embarrassed.

So Jeremy Corbyn was right to suggest she apologise. What a powerful message it would be, an unprecedented move for unprecedented times, what a rallying call. Her money was erroneously invested, it will never happen again.

Grand-scale tax avoidance is an insult to the people of her country and a blight on her nation’s future. It must be brought to an end.

Maybe then we’ll put our window cleaning costs through the books.