VERY few of us – indeed, I think I can confidently state none of us – enjoy paying tax.

But most, if not all, recognise the necessity.

Tax is what provides our schools, hospitals, roads, social services. It maintains law and order through the police. It pays for our armed forces, hopefully keeping us safe in an ever more dangerous world. Even sport and culture – libraries, theatres – gain help through our taxes. Civilised life rests on them.

But of course the money has to be collected. Even if not in physical form, it must exist. Some kind of smoke and mirrors act suggesting the money is there wouldn’t bring the benefits outlined above.

Now over to Castle Howard, that “sublime palace”, as Horace Walpole, a top man of taste in the 18th Century, dubbed it. Closer to our time, John Betjeman viewed it as “where Yorkshire in its splendour rivals Rome”. Well, it is currently cock a hoop over a tax deal by which sees it hand over not one penny.

Let’s be fair. The means to this non-payment – the Accepted in Lieu scheme – is not unique to Castle Howard. There isn’t an issue of the magazine of the Historic Houses Association (HHA), which represents the owners of around 1,600 privately-owned historic properties, that doesn’t carry adverts by fine-art specialists such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s highlighting transactions in which they have secured tax exemption in exchange for artefacts gifted to the nation.

Castle Howard has just saved itself £5.4m in future inheritance tax by transferring ownership of much of its indoor statuary, notably the busts and figures that line its Antique Passage, to the National Museums of Liverpool (no, me neither, and it is plural). But none of the objects will move – an arrangement hailed as win/win by all concerned.

Summing it up, Dr Christopher Ridgway, curator at Castle Howard, says it allows the items still “to be appreciated in the context of this building, which remains the home of the family that collected them two and a half centuries ago”. He adds that the Liverpool museums “like the idea of partnership with a major house in the north… If Liverpool wanted to borrow one or two items that would be fine”. (Such generosity, to the new owners.)

But of course, no money passes to the Treasury, for the good of all. And, here’s the vital thing, Castle Howard pulled off a similar deal last year, yielding up ownership of a Joshua Reynolds portrait for a tax break of £4.7m.

Perhaps like you, I’ve enjoyed visiting Castle Howard. My wife and I are ‘friends’ of the HHA, whose properties, not least in Yorkshire and the North-East, greatly outnumber those of the National Trust. Crucially they are still family homes, each with the individual stamp of its owner. My wife and I are pleased our HHA ‘friends’ membership helps maintain this important cultural heritage.

But the Acceptance in Lieu scheme needs looking at. Maybe transactions should be restricted in number – say no more than one every five years – with an upper limit, possibly £5m, a sizeable sum, on the amount cumulatively saved. If all of us could get off the tax hook as easily as Castle Howard appears to do, just where would the country be?