Sooner or later, the Conservatives, Labour and the rest will realise that raking through one another’s tax statuses is a race to the bottom — and that seeking disclosure from outside the Westminster tent is far better than seeking it from within.
Several commentators have already made the point that what is starting with prime ministers and leaders of the opposition having to publish tax statements could cascade down to those in other walks of public life, right down to local councillors — so why not those running banks that benefited from taxpayer bail-outs in the late 2000s?
As private individuals, bankers could refuse to make their tax returns public — but with the UK government a major shareholder in some big UK banks, they may find that political pressure doubles into boardroom pressure.
Bankers are a useful bogeyman to bash when politicians find themselves under the glare of the public eye — especially as some banks are already being linked to transactions in the Panama Papers.
And even if the Panama Papers reveal nothing but legal transactions, the speed at which, for instance, the UK prime minister David Cameron switched from saying his tax statements were a private affair to printing them in full shows that there is a big change in how such dealings are being viewed by the public.
Banks may soon find themselves under the harsh glare of publicity once again. And that may affect individuals even more than in the past — from their own tax affairs to the Senior Managers Regime, which makes top executives legally responsible for everything that happens at a bank.