Another MPs' report testifies to the great efforts made to disguise salaries as something more exotic – and less taxable. This time the BBC's "off-payroll contracts" are in the frame, and it is galling to see public services choking the fiscal lifeblood on which they depend, but the reality is that this is all of a piece with tax-shirking attitudes that blight wider society, from the humble builder advised to reinvent his wages as dividends to his wife, right up to the top of corporate towers, where a tentacle is thrown out to the Caymans to knock up a sign reading "home, sweet home". With a national debt rapidly heading towards parity with national income, we cannot afford such expensive lies. The last time the country was racking up this sort of debt, in the depths of the second world war, it did something radical – instigating the Pay As You Earn system, which established the presumption of tax first, ask questions later. Reasserting that in these less deferential times might seem tricky – wouldn't everyone just do their deals in readies, to be stuffed under the mattress? Maybe, but an opportunity glimmers in the cloud of a crisis in which fiat money's goose is slowly but surely being cooked. If we got ahead of the game and abolished cash, we could tax every payment, from whatever source, on its way into a bank account. The taxman could apply allowances, and even boost them with the deluge of cash, but then challenge anyone wanting a rebate to come forward and make their case – and with a straight face.