Snitching, grassing, blabbing, sneaking, spilling the beans, informing on, letting the cat out of the bag, leaking, blowing the gaff, betraying, selling down the river, telling on, shopping, blowing the whistle, tipping the wink, ratting – whatever you call it, snitching is a tainted practice.

Nearly 200,000 people have shopped enemies, friends, bosses and family to a new confidential Tax Evasion Hotline over the past year, The Times has learnt. Such ratting is often justified by the pious sentiment that the ends justify the means. But would an apologist for snitching argue that it is also morally permissible to mug millionaires on dark street corners in order to raise cash to carry out good works for the poor?

Tax evasion is reprehensible, but should you snitch? On enemies – understandable; but on friends? Snitching sounds moral and high-minded. But much snitching to the tax authorities is not motivated by a quest for financial justice, but by a desire to get even – with a former spouse, an annoying neighbour, an employer who is massaging his tax bill, or a friend or a business partner with whom you have fallen out. Such ratting is no more noble than when politicians snitch on political rivals. How else do we learn of Tony Blair’s succession of sunshine holiday hosts, or of that pantomime of David Cameron’s cycle being followed to his office by his car, or of Gordon Brown’s refusal, when Chancellor, to tell Tony Blair what he would be unveiling in his annual Budget? Well, snitching can be entertaining.

We should strive to right wrongs in ways that do not leave us with a nasty taste in our mouths. We might know that it is wrong that Britney Spears should be allowed to release more CDs, but that doesn’t mean that we have the right to send Tony Soprano round to Britney’s house to “persuade” her to consider fresh career options.

But then the tax authorities probably don’t call it anything so vulgar as snitching: they may call it a “non-formal revenue-enhancement stream”. If it is ethical to rat to the Revenue about unpaid taxes, is it not also ethical to grass up the sneaks? Is there a hotline to snitch on the snitchers?