That tax is innately a drag on the economy was pointed out not by some rabid right wing libertarian flat taxer but by Lord Keynes.

Yet if taxes are inevitable and necessary – an “if” we might do well to question from time to time – then those taxes should be structured in a way that encourages what is desirable and discourages what is undesirable.

In particular, as Matthew Boulton, the father of the Industrial Revolution, pointed out it is less undesirable – although still not desirable – to tax wealth than to tax the means of increasing wealth.

Yet most tax systems tax industry more than consumption – despite the fact that it is generally agreed that labouring to improve one’s lot is morally superior to consuming.

It is also generally agreed that investment, job creation, and exports are economically desirable – yet some tax systems penalise them instead of encouraging them.

A wide raft of taxes – including higher rate income taxes, “windfall taxes”, inadequate capital allowances, and Gordon Brown’s tax on pension funds – act as a positive block to the investment of surplus wealth in new business.

That is dumb.

Even dumber is the way politicians whose only interest in the economy is job creation actually discourage employment by imposing payroll taxes.

Yet dumbest of all is surely a tax on exports, like Argentina’s positively insane tax on its prime export – no pun intended – beef. Exports are as important to a nation as sales are to a business, and no business would make itself uncompetitive by increasing its prices arbitrarily.

If there must be taxes, let them be designed by businessmen.