We had plans to cover the issue, which popped up in a KPMG briefing note recently.

But it does at least, give me the chance to introduce a new concept to tax. When the chancellor fails to raise income tax thresholds in line with earnings growth every year, we talk of 'fiscal drag'. When children outgrow (I use the word with caution) the VAT rules, can we talk of 'Physical Drag'?

*Cruel, I know, but irresistible...

I was in two minds as to whether or not to discuss it on Tuesday or Wednesday, because it's one of those policies that seems too silly to even bother to knock down. Thankfully, both Chris Dillow and Ross Clark did a good job on that front, saving the rest of us some time.

What I wanted to discuss here is the government's attempts to row back from the plan. The line today is that it's pure 'speculation' and kite-flying by the national media.

Pull the other one. The original Sun piece was by George Pascoe-Watson, the paper's political editor. The piece was a full rundown of Gordon Brown's plans to tackle the impact of the credit crunch and, to this observer at least, looked like having come from a briefing from Number 10. It seems an implausible thing for The Sun to have made up, frankly.

The move is already seeing the market seize up as buyers wait to take advantage of the proposed tax break. If the Treasury had any sense, it would come out and explicitly rule out the plan. What chance of that, I wonder?

Tax complexity is one of those tricky topics that I think nobody really knows how to solve, and I suspect there are good reasons for Richard Murphy-like cynicism about the whole project.

The plans are two-fold: firstly, an Office of Tax Simplification to monitor tax policies.

And secondly, a joint parliamentary committee on tax matters.

Of the two, I like the second far more than the first. Members of the House of Commons are, to put it mildly, very ill-briefed on tax frequently. To ask them to scrutinise the finance bill is hopeless, and a joint committee, comprising the much more experienced members of the House of Lords as well as those from the commons, would add to the intelligence of the debate.

The Office of Tax Simplification is less attractive. More bureaucrats do not create less bureaucracy; surely a principle the Tory party exists to promote.

Like a Corporate Social Responsibility department within a multi-national company, it will only exist to be paid lip-service to. Real simplicity, like real CSR, comes from the top; in the case of tax, from clear thinking and a desire and political will to embrace radical solutions.

Take one example. The debate over multi-nationals leaving the country has been hampered by complex arguments over whether we should lower the corporate tax rate, or just hammer the big companies with fiercely complicated rules about overseas subsidiaries. I doubt either would work.

In fact, the most elegant solution, rarely discussed, came from Deloitte. It suggested a low tax rate for mobile income, recognising that some things can be taxed and some can't.

The Tories should aim for similar realism on all aspects of tax; through doing so, they may get somewhere towards a simpler and better tax system.

Esteemed experts from accountancy firms and from law firms are all lining up to say that the High Court's rejection of the CFC rules is terrible news for the government, and removes a key set of anti-avoidance principles.

But will it have any impact?

Few companies have big CFC liabilities like Vodafone, because the rules are an obstacle rather than anything else: companies plan around them. So there aren't thought to be huge numbers of cases awaiting resolution.

And secondly, noone is going to say to themselves now: 'Why don't we ignore the government's controlled foreign companies rules.'

Whatever happens, the government will introduce new rules that will have a similar effect, so I doubt anyone's behaviour will ultimately change going forward. (it will actually prove more of a problem for taxpayers, since they'll have to master the new rules rather than the old ones.)

What's more, I suspect there is some doubt the judgment will stand. Taxpayers often win in the High Court, with HMRC having a better record elsewhere. With £2bn at stake, there's no danger of anyone backing down if they don't have to.

The really intriguing part of the case is not, if you ask me, what impact this has for other companies, but on what Vodafone was up to.

The company has declined to elaborate on the details of its Luxembourg subsidiary, which bought the shares of Mannesmann, and in which those shares attract no capital gains charge.

Are all relevant management decisions made in Luxembourg? Are there lots of people there? Vodafone says it meets the tests, but hasn't pleaded its case in court in full.

Clearly, we want to look at how these reforms might affect individual sectors, including those dealing with intellectual property. We are committed to a revenue-neutral package that enhances competitiveness while protecting UK tax revenues.

That's a 'Treasury source' quoted by The Times.

It shows an intriguing trend.

In last week's Economist, he says: 'The more successful tax collectors are in preventing firms from shifting profit out of Britain, the more they are likely to encourage firms to leave the country.'

That just about sums up the futility of the government's policy.

Walters is, for those who don't know, the group head of tax at Vodafone, and he makes the point that he thinks there is not as much 'tax avoidance' going on, there just seems to be because where disagreements between companies and HMRC do arise, they involve huge sums of money.

Whether or not it does - and I'm sure we'll see plenty of discussion of the move over the next 24 hours - here are the full list of questions the committee are interested in.

George Osborne was speaking to the British Chambers of Commerce in Liverpool about it today, and I've finally got hold of the full speech.

To which the only real response is: why on earth did Tony Blair believe him? 25,000 people? Really? Just how bad is the former prime minister's mental arithmetic?

In an article on companies being disgruntled with the UK taxman, an (unnamed) private equity figure suggests that after going to the Treasury to talk about sensitive tax issues, he/she and others were investigated by the Revenue.

Perhaps the first thing to note is that this is not about UK tax rates. If you look at the company's annual report (pdf, p.80) for the year ending December 2006, it notes a UK tax credit, rather than charge, of $44m (£22m).

The question is curious because there are differing views out there as to how the whole battle will play out.