Forget for a moment (if you can) recent events on the Hill. The story of that week, possibly the month, or maybe even the year, Mr Editor, may yet turn out to be the one headlined: “Charman: Corporate tax would benefit Bermuda.”

Heads were spinning, phones ringing and tongues wagging, I bet, after that one — and I won’t even get into what was tearing up the blogs. It was no early April’s Fool joke either. It read like Mr Charman was dead serious. I believe he was — and for good reason, as he went on to explain.

You had it right, I think, when you described the pronouncement as akin to a Zeppelin-sized trial balloon; in local parlance, girt big, I would say.

It also made for an interesting twist on that famous little ditty, attributed to former US Senator the late Russell Long from Louisiana, who in his capacity as chairman of the US Congressional finance committee, had this to say about everyone’s philosophy on [paying] taxes: “Don’t tax him. Don’t tax me. Tax that man behind the tree.”

There are varying accounts of how Mr Charman’s audacious plea for taxation went down within his own industry, in the wider international business community and within Government. I am almost certain that those reports would also make for interesting reading. No surprise there.

What is also certain is that this genie can’t be put back in the bottle any time soon, or at all. That should come as no surprise either. We need only take note of the world in which we live, and in which we compete.

That was the message of Mr Charman, a mover and a shaker in the insurance industry, chairman and CEO of Bermuda-based Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd., whose experience and insight has led him to conclude that we require a new and fresh approach. In his own reported words: “In order to re-balance our global financial status we need transformational change in Bermuda.”

Mr Charman is not reading the tea leaves here, only the constant, daily dispatches, when he goes on to suggest that the answer may be a tax on company profits, the introduction of which might go a long way to disarming our international critics, who are legion, it seems, and who continue to regard and paint Bermuda as one of a number of dirty little shady tax havens around the world. We are of course familiar.

Of course, his suggestion came with caveats: keep it low, phase it over time, ease up and down on other current taxes and continue with plans to open Bermuda up, ie making protectionism a thing of the past. That figures too.

But whether all of Mr Charman’s proferred solutions are the answer to our problems is open to debate. As it should be. What isn’t is the need for solutions and, for sure, a better strategy than we currently employ.

Our Finance Minister was himself at great pains in his recent budget Statement to paint the sad picture for us. In brief, he said:

• The external regulatory/tax environment is “hostile” to our core international business model.

• Anti-tax haven rhetoric has reached “a fever pitch” and [low tax jurisdictions] are getting dumped in “the same trash bin”.

• If we lose in our bid to differentiate ourselves and to present ourselves as something other than a tax haven, we stand to lose our international business.

So we know the problem, already.

The Minister mentioned in his same statement stepping up our PR campaign (good luck with that) and requesting “technical assistance” from an IMF body known as CARTAC, short for Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre, to study “the feasibility of broadening Bermuda’s tax base” (and who knows what they will come up with).

It strikes me that we need something more ­— and quickly.

We cannot afford to continue to get wet just by spitting into the winds, winds of change arguably, that are sweeping through and gathering on all sides of the pond.

Here at home, Government elected to go with SAGE and not RAGE, a community-based examination of expenditures but not of revenue. This was what was needed, a revamped bi-partisan, non-political approach like the one taken with Bermuda First. Remember that one? Something home-grown and born of those who know and understand and want Bermuda to succeed.

Mr Charman simply set out the challenge, having spoken not just outside the usual channels of communication, but outside the proverbial box.

On a lighter note, Mr Editor, when I first heard the story I was reminded of that old toilet paper commercial, the one with Mr Whipple in the supermarket aisle (remember?), which makes for a further humorous twist on what Mr C had to say: “ Please. Don’t squeeze the Charmin.”