If I had a little money...

It is time to talk money.

Not those bits of shrapnel jiggling around in your pocket, nor even the small nest egg you have scrimped and saved and managed to cobble together over many years. We are talking big money - in some cases, eye-watering amounts of the stuff.

Fortunately not everyone is driven purely by the thought of how many dollars they can accumulate over the years. Some are happy to rub along from one week to the next, knowing there is always a little left over after the bills have been paid.

But for them, personal savings may be just a dream. Others find it a constant struggle to stay in the black or, worse, to ensure they do not slip deeper into debt.

Even in New Zealand's so-called ''egalitarian'' society, there is a gaping financial chasm between the fat cat chief executives earning millions of dollars a year and those whose indebtedness to money lenders gets more ruinous every month.

But even these huge disparities are eclipsed by the size of the salary packages on offer overseas and the wealth stockpiled by the globe's richest, and the appalling poverty in which getting on for half of the world's population - about 3 billion people - live, according to Unicef.

What is it about money that fascinates, frustrates and motivates? Aside from its obvious use - for food, clothes, warmth and shelter - a primary attraction is the sense of independence it gives. It is easy to see that the more money one has, the greater the independence that provides.

Taking that a step further, is it possible to draw a link between increasingly elevated levels of independence and a growing belief by some that the rules, or laws, may only apply to others? By this stage, an individual's ethical or moral compass is likely already badly out of kilter.

The tax dodges employed by some of the world's super wealthy - revealed this week in what the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is calling the ''Paradise Papers''- are jaw-droppingly arrogant and audacious. Among the leaks from the cache of 13 million documents are papers showing that global giant Apple actively sought out loopholes, used complicated financial arrangements and tax havens which allowed it to minimise its tax obligations.

Other documents showed the Duchy of Lancaster, which manages the Queen's private estate, invested millions of pounds offshore in the well-known tax havens, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

These tax havens - others include Jersey in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man - are effectively shelters for people who choose to abrogate their responsibilities. Communities are built on mutual trust and support, and paying tax is part of that.

There are many ways in which organisations try to pay as little tax as possible, including setting up shell companies and inventing convoluted financial deals in these tax havens. New Zealanders and New Zealand organisations have shown themselves to be complicit in such behaviour in the past.

State-owned enterprise Transpower New Zealand was one which tried to minimise its taxes a bit more than a decade ago by effectively selling its South Island electricity transmission grid to United States bank Wachovia and then ''leasing'' it back.

In the end, then Labour finance minister Dr Michael Cullen was forced to change the tax rules to stop SOEs engaging in similar moves.

The average New Zealander, on an average or lower-than-average wage, deserves to know that those who hold more of the wealth are behaving ethically and fairly, and making their fair share of contributions to society.

The ''Paradise Papers'', which follow last year's ''Panama Papers'', have let another chink of light into the cloistered world of tax avoidance.

They should be welcomed by all who value transparency and ethical and moral financial conduct.