Low Tax doesn't actually mean No Tax. Nevertheless, most of our over-taxed visitors would give a lot to have our system.

There are taxes, but no personal ones. So: we do not have Income Tax; Inheritance Tax; Capital Gains Tax; Added Value Tax; Profits Tax or any of the other taxes that other Europeans have to cope with. There is not even such a thing as a tax office and company tax is set at a fixed rate of less than 1.000¬ per year.

So how does Andorra raise the 300m¬ needed to run the country every year? From visitors, is the answer. Although visitors persist in believing that their purchases are duty-free they are mistaken. This is perhaps because our prices for such things as tobacco, alcohol, perfume, jewellery and designer goods are so cheap compared with anywhere else in Europe. Everything brought into Andorra for re-sale - and that means practically everything including most foodstuffs - bears a small import duty. Since almost every visitor fills up his car with cheap petrol and buys the regulation bottle of brandy and cigarettes, Andorra does very nicely out of it. Chivas Regal 12 year old 1 litre ¬20.00 White Horse Whiskey 1 litre ¬7.99, Rémy Martin VSOP 750ml ¬28.00 and 200 cigarettes - Benson & Hedges Gold & Dunhill King Size - ¬20,00, Fortuna, Ducados, Marlboro - ¬13.00. Prices vary, particularly if there is a promotion on in a certain shop.

Best shopping buys are those where luxury taxes inflate the prices substantially in your home country such as electronic goods, car parts and tyres and camera equipment and CD's.

Andorrans, by the way, do not see any urgent reason to change a system that has stood them in good stead for over 700 years.