Buying online doesn’t mean shoppers pay less tax

My first experience of the sharp end of Revenue collection enforcement came when I was still in secondary school. Some of the other lads and I clubbed together to buy a few singles from a mail-order outfit in the US.

In case my teenagers are reading this, a single was a vinyl disc, seven inches in diameter which held two songs, one on the front and one on the back.

We thought it was smart to buy them mail-order because the prices were marginally cheaper and as boarders we didn’t get out to the shops much.