It is understandable that readers of this site could be mistakenly under the impression that my life is one long series of disastrous events, interspersed with minor annoyances at regular intervals. Though this is mostly true, good things do happen to me from time to time.
This week was one such occurrence.
The end of January is normally a nightmare for me, due to the Tax return deadline 31st January. This usually results in me spending a week at the end of the month rifling through my poorly-kept records looking for receipts, statements, invoices etc. I hate it. I know I could get an accountant, but why would I pay an accountant a few hundred pounds for something I could do just as well. You will be suggesting I get a professional to service my boiler next.
Anyway, after a week of rooting around in dusty paperwork I was finally in a position to submit my return online.
That is when the magic happened. It appears, that due to some unwise investment decisions on my part, that the Tax man owes me NINE. HUNDRED. POUNDS.
This is unprecedented. I always owe extra. Always. It is like an unwritten law of the universe that they snuck in there between the ones about gravity and atoms and that, “The Tax man will collect a few extra pounds from Mr Angry at the end January. Every. Single. Year”.
I can only imagine this is what it must be like to turn up to court for a speeding offence, only for the magistrate to give you an expenses paid two week holiday in Dubai.
Of course, I do not actually have the cash yet, but it is surely only a matter of time. Surely?
I sincerely hope that in the coming weeks you will not be sat there reading the Jonnyb-esque headline, “I have inadvertently committed tax fraud!!!”
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
In a period of about a month last year, I received two letters from the Tax People, one of which said I owed them more NI payments.
The other letter told me I had overpaid my NI contributions and included a cheque for 30 quid. I think they just make it up. Or maybe it is like the lottery.
They are quick enough to take it off you but wehn they need to refund you it’ll take months.
I got mine in on-line in the middle of Dec.. I was owed a couple of hundred too. Got it paid nice and promptly too! I agree with having a whinge but you certainly look stupid when you whinge about something which you obviously know very little about!! Now that’s something that makes me MAD!
You can put that towards your new Mac
It’s reading about your life of woes that brings me here everyday Angry, it gives me the strength to make through another day as a faceless corporate drone.
I’ve long since accepted that the real purpose of the Universe is to make my passage through it as difficult as possible and it gives me hope to realise that it’s not just me the bastard is picking on.
rach – If I am right, then they absolutely know what they are doing. Otherwise you are right.
Celeste – I have been led to believe it will be a couple of weeks at most!
Steve G – If I only wrote about things I know a lot about this would be a very short blog indeed.
Anna – I am still living with the watermark
Keef – You have no face?!? You have done well to even get a job. Do they lock you in an office with no windows?
you might need a new boiler …
Don’t spend it before you get it in case they change their minds!
Well, congratulations. Spend it wisely.
If they take too long to give it back to you, just give them a deadline by which to do it, and say you’ll fine them if they are late!! Do as you would be done by I say! Of course I could just be relying on the Water Babies rather to heavily for my life lessons.
Spend it on a carbon monoxide detector.
I too suffer from “Why should I pay someone to do something that I could do myself?” syndrome. Let’s just say that the washing machine repairman was quite intrigued by how I’d tried to remove the front fascia to unjam the on-off switch, but inadvertently moved the programme selector dial so that the letters no longer lined up with the mechanism. It was like wash-day roulette for a few weeks – you’d put your coloured delicates in, only to find you’d selected a boil wash with extra spin.
The £6 I spend on a haircut each month will be my next economy drive.
They are very good at delaying repayments at the mo.
Give it a couple of weeks, then ring them.
That’ll be £500 for the advice.
Ta very muchly.
Hey – you can share a cell with Wesley Snipes.
Just curious though – was the Mac the unwise investment? – Oh how I wish I’d bought a real computer instead of this waterlogged fischer-price toy
bittersweet me – Unlikely, it is basically a big kettle, how hard can it be to service it?
Lin – I will not spend it frivolously. Probably.
Em – Thanks.
Angel – And charge them for the admin of telling them?
Salvadore – Wow. I have never met anyone who gets his hair cut in 1985.
sheppitsgal – Send me your invoice and I will file it with the others.
gnarlyswine – No, believe it or not, that was one of the cleverer things I did with my money this year.
Apparently you could have given yourself another 24 hours as HMRC has just extended the deadline. So, who is the loser now?
(I filed my return in early September, by the way.)
Re my hair – is it the highlights and flick fringe that give it away? Seriously, I am paying £72 a year. I have my own scissors – how hard can it be?
So I actually submitted TWO days early? A new PB, woo hoo!
And I can spot a Flock of Seagulls fan anywhere.
Has any sentence, ever, preceded more human misery than the phrase, “How hard can it be?”
Here is another sentence preceding misery: “Hey, watch this!” As in the context of some redneck (yobbo) jumping off a roof holding an umbrella (brolly) in each hand.
Intaxication: The thrill of discovering that the tax man owes you money, which lasts only until you remember it was your money in the first place
What’s our cut of your good fortune?
I have been self employed once. I paid no tax whatsoever for around four years. It was easy.
You can always fool the taxman but never the VAT man.
Why are you paying any? I’m confused.
Can I borrow twenty by the way?
I managed to get the tax man to repay me about 1,200 pounds a year, 5 years on the trot. I just can’t remember how I managed it.
Last year, I owed him about 2 quid. Which I think he wrote off. I obviously have some good tax-karma floating around.
Yes, I know, I am a freak.
Jebus, this is very red.