At the request of a reader, I am going to scare the living beeswax out of a couple of thousand of readers. What I have to say is so horrible that they will refuse to believe it, and as a result, when they die, their children will hate them forever.

The subject is British death duties.

Take the case of a person born in Britain who moves to Bermuda when she is 25 and marries a Bermudian. They live happily in Bermuda, riding around for free on the buses, until he dies and then she dies one day on a trip to the UK to see auld Scotland one last time. She is duly buried in Glasgow.

Her children are deeply saddened, but at least they can inherit the family homestead without paying any Bermuda tax (under today's regulations). That's nice. Imagine how appalled they're going to be when the British send her estate a bill for death duties, at 40 percent of the value of everything she leaves behind, minus an allowance, plus interest.

Far-fetched? Not really. True? Indubitably. And because Bermuda is administratively British at the highest levels, the legal judgement that the British tax authorities will win hands-down in Britain will be enforceable in Bermuda. The children will have to pay the tax, or, if they refuse, go to jail and then pay the tax.

The death duties are avoidable if one qualifies for, applies for and is granted a certificate of non-domiciliation, and one is not buried in the UK, and one has no income in the UK, and one has no property in the UK, and one belongs to no clubs in the UK, and so on. But trip up on a couple of these matters, and you'll owe the death duties if you were born in Britain and retained any kind of meaningful tie there.

I told the reader all this. She had several responses, of the sort you might be having if you fall into this category.

1. "How will the British Government know I've died and owe the taxes?"

If you have a British passport, starting soon you're going to have to have a British identity card. You will be in the database of Brits. They will know about you. And they will come after you. The British tax authorities are as relentless as the hounds of hell, and proud of it.

2. "Well, I know lots of British people who lived and died in Bermuda and they didn't pay death duties."

Maybe, but if they left money behind, their beneficiaries are probably delinquent in their taxes. There is no time limit on death duties. They have to be paid in full, with interest, for as long as you are dead.

3. "This can't be right!"

It is not right, in the moral sense. I haven't lived in Britain since 1975, but if I were to die before I finish typing this column, in Bermuda, and were buried in Bermuda, my brother would have to pay British death duties on my estate.

We've talked about it, and his only comment was that I should hurry up and die, because 60 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing, which is what he's legally entitled to as long as I'm alive. (He was kidding, probably. We Crombies share a mordant sense of humour.)

The reason is an ugly legal construct called "domicile of origin". I was born in Britain, and at the moment that I first drew breath and cried out "Come on, you Spurs!" I became domiciled in Britain. For most British people, who spend their lives in Britain, that's fine, because they live in Britain and pay taxes in Britain and die in Britain. (If they are Arsenal supporters, it serves them right.)

But I left Britain in 1975 to come to Bermuda, and I have never been back long enough to requalify as a British resident for tax purposes. I count the days every time I go, and after I get back, to ensure that I don't owe taxes. It is a pain, but only a minor pain, believe me, compared to paying the tax.

Residence and domicile are two different tax things. I am a Bermuda resident for UK tax purposes, which is lovely. I only have to pay Bermuda taxes, not British taxes. But despite spending my adult life outside Britain, I have yet to be able to shake off my domicile of origin.

If I were to marry a Bermudian and live here forever, I could successfully argue to the British that my domicile is no longer the UK. But I'm too old to marry anyone, so my brother must prepare to pay my death tax, even if I were to never set foot in Britain again.

None of this sounds reasonable, logical or correct. The British tax regime is punitive, humourless and morally without scruple. Hitler would have been deeply proud of the way the British taxman thinks. (Of course, had Hitler won the war and run the world from London, he would have had to pay British death duties, and then he might not have thought it all quite so funny.)

My friend can solve her problem by obtaining a certificate of non-domiciliation in Britain, for which she qualifies. But she says she won't do it, because she thinks I'm kidding. How I wish I were. How I wish we lived in a world where taxes made sense and were fair, and were levied on those who could afford them. And how I wish I could marry Julia Roberts and half a dozen other babes. Or two dozen.

On a slightly different subject of importance to many Bermudians, how I wish I knew what to do about the aforementioned British ID card, to be introduced next year, I think. (Its introduction might have been delayed for a year or two.) As a British passport holder, I will have no choice but to buy an ID card from the British Gummint (cost: about $160, whether you want one or not.) My passport runs out next year, however, and I might be able to avoid having an ID card by applying early.

The question is: would I be well advised not to have one?

Say I'm strolling down the Strand, not a care in the world, on one of my occasional trips to the UK. "Beautiful day," I say to a passing policeman. "ID card, citizen, now," he snarls in reply. "Don't have one, Ossifer," I might reply, with one of those smug grins. "I live in Bermuda."

"Oh really?" he might reply, and then he and his pals would set about beating me with their truncheons until my brother had to pay death duties on my estate.

You have been warned. All but the preceding two paragraphs are in deadly earnest. If you doubt me, ask to see a suitably qualified lawyer for half an hour. And when he or she tells you what you don't want to hear, don't hate me for being the messenger.