[sql] Use CASE statement to check if column exists in table - SQL Server

I'm using a SQL server statement embedded in some other C# code; and simply want to check if a column exists in my table.

If the column (ModifiedByUSer here) does exist then I want to return a 1 or a true; if it doesn't then I want to return a 0 or a false (or something similar that can be interpreted in C#).

I've got as far as using a CASE statement like the following:

SELECT cast(case WHEN EXISTS (select ModifiedByUser from Tags) 
            THEN 0 
            ELSE 1 
            END as bit)

But if the ModifiedByUser doesn't exist then I'm getting an invalid column name, instead of the return value.

I've also considered:

IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'Tags' AND COLUMN_NAME = 'ModifiedByUser')
  BEGIN // Do something here to return a value
  END

But don't know how to conditionally return a value/bool/bit based on the result. Any help much appreciated!

You can check in the system 'table column mapping' table

SELECT count(*)
  FROM Sys.Columns c
  JOIN Sys.Tables t ON c.Object_Id = t.Object_Id
 WHERE upper(t.Name) = 'TAGS'
   AND upper(c.NAME) = 'MODIFIEDBYUSER'

select case
         when exists (SELECT 1 FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'Tags' AND COLUMN_NAME = 'ModifiedByUser')
         then 0
         else 1
       end

Try this one -

SELECT *
FROM ...
WHERE EXISTS(SELECT 1 
        FROM sys.columns c
        WHERE c.[object_id] = OBJECT_ID('dbo.Tags')
            AND c.name = 'ModifiedByUser'
    )

SELECT *
FROM ...
WHERE EXISTS(SELECT 1 
        FROM sys.columns c
        WHERE c.[object_id] = OBJECT_ID('dbo.Tags')
            AND c.name = 'ModifiedByUser'
    )