Once again the 31st of January is loomin and, once again, letter from Her Majesties Blood Letters and Flesh Collectors are sending threatening letters about the fines and interest if I don’t file my tax return and pay any tax owed1 by the end in the month.
Unlike the days of yore this years panic is nothing to do with me being too scared2, lazy or disorganised to hand my tax return and has everything to do with the management company for my flat and my mortgage company.
My accountant had most of the paperwork she needed 6 months ago. In fact, I was so organised that she was very impressed. Everything was filed neatly, receipts with attached to purchase orders, things were grouped and put into clear plastic pouches and everything put into a folder for her. All that was missing was the details of the service charge and mortgage for my flat which was problematic because they both work December to December. With that I promised to send the information as soon as I had it and we left it at that.
The management company sent the 2010 details through early this month and I emailed those to the accountant with a note saying I knew we were still waiting on the mortgage company and I’d sent it as soon as.
It’s now mid January and still nothing. So I called them. Before being put through to the customer services operator I was told, via the medium of recorded message, that statements were being posted between early January and the 28th of February. Great. So not only do they do their paperwork at a hideously inconvenient time, they then wait until it’s potentially too late to tell me. The girl on the phone told me if I called back with a few details they’d be able to read the information I needed out over the phone. Somehow I can’t help but think that just posting the mortgage statements before the end of January would be cheaper than having staff spend ages on the phone calculating details needed for peoples tax returns. Lunacy.
Anyway, at least for next year3 I know I can call them and will do so May sometime. In the mean time I await my draft accounts and, more importantly, the discovery of how much I owe the tax man. It’s not something I’m looking forward to.
1The Inland Revenue, unlike the law courts, work on the premise of guilty until proven innocent. If they think you owe them money fines and daily interest are accrued. Ignorance is no excuse. If, in the other hand, you are owed money the onus is often on you to prove it. When you finally receive the cash no interest is paid on it. This explains why people are always so happy to get a tax rebate as if it’s a gift, despite it bring money the government has stolen from you which they’re now returning without interest.
2The Inland Bastard Fucking Revenue (as they were then) and I had a big fight some years back. I won, bur only after much stress and investing several thousand in my accountant over a period of two months. The irony being that I was in the wrong which just goes to prove the system is hideously overcomplicated and prone to exploitation by those with the money to afford very good (and creative) accountants.
3And by next year I, of course, mean this year, in about 6 months time.