Friday, February 20, 2015

A '50 shades of tax' pun

"I use gaffer tape to stick down the envelope for my tax return... 

 Cos its Tax duct tapeable. DUCT TAPEABLE"

With all due credit to Arnie Haybridge who posted this on twitter

Friday, February 13, 2015

The importance of getting your tax return right

HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs) has returned a Tax Return to a man in STANSTED after he apparently answered one of the questions incorrectly.
In response to the question: "Do you have anyone dependant on you?" he wrote:
2.1 million illegal immigrants, 1.1 million crackheads, 4.4 million unemployable Jeremy Kyle scroungers, 900,000 criminals in over 85 prisons plus 650 idiots in Parliament and the whole of the European Commission.
HMRC stated that the response he gave was unacceptable.
The man's response back to HMRC was simple:
SORRY - Who did I miss out?
Many thanks to Brian Cruickshank for highlighting this for me. 

Monday, February 09, 2015

Hugh's new client

The following story comes from long-time subscriber to my newsletters and blog posts, Hugh Dunlop.

Hugh is a practicing accountant who is close to retirement in Scotland. He tells of a self employed person who came to him a couple of years ago to file the SA100 tax return.
As it was the first year of the business and he had previously been employed under PAYE I was able to get him a tidy tax rebate. 
In 2014 I told him that he had made a profit just under the personal allowance and as a result he would have no tax to pay. The reply was 'Does that mean I won't get a tax rebate again?' I said that as he had not paid any tax he could not get one. 'OH. Does that mean I won't have to pay you?'
Some clients just don't get it do they?

HOW strong is HMRC's case?

Years ago a senior official was talking about HMRC prosecution policy. He mentioned an occasion when he had lost a case and went back to his...