HE may be one of Britain's top funnymen but few were laughing when they read The Times' front page story this week about Jimmy Carr.
The paper revealed Mr Carr avoids paying any income tax by putting all his money on a buoy floating in the North Sea, tantalisingly outside of UK jurisdiction.
However, the Ugly Truth can reveal that he is by no means the only penny-pinching mirth-maker using means fair or foul to keep their vast fortune.
A source close to TV's Chuckle Brothers – aka Barry and Paul Elliott - has described how their accounting flair has helped them rob UK taxpayers of several million pounds over the years.
The source said: “People think they're idiots but trust me, these are two of the sharpest operators in the business.
“They have a number of ways of keeping hold of all of their cash, and coining in a fair bit more on the side.
“Firstly, they pay no income tax or corporation tax whatsoever, even though anybody who's watched ChuckleVision over the years will have seen them operating a thriving handyman business.
“Somehow they've managed to convince the Inland Revenue that they've never completed a single job to a satisfactory standard and have thus never been paid a penny. 
“Secondly, they claim all kinds of benefits. Barry has managed to convince the authorities that he can't walk 30 yards without a custard pie finding his face or without him tripping on a landmine, so he gets Jobseeker's Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, the works.
“Plus, when all else fails, they just knock each other over with ladders and then get straight on the phone to First 4 Lawyers.
“It's ironic that their catchphrase is 'To Me, To You, when their attitude has always been 'To Me, To Me'.”
We have also discovered that Premier Inn's Lenny Henry avoids paying 95% of his income tax contributions by basing his jokes in Gran Canaria, the only place where anybody finds them funny.
Perhaps most scandalously of all, insurance salesman and part-time comic Paul Whitehouse has slashed his debt to the Treasury by having himself registered as a charity.
According to official Charity Commission documents, Mr Whitehouse is “a charitable organisation devoted to the furtherance of irritating impressions and generic Celtic accents.”
Prime Minister David Cameron has promised a widespread review into whether any of these people are funny.
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