Fragments of Letters to Tax Inspectors
I’m sorry I was naughty and didn’t send my tax return (I think its something to do with not finding the time to do the things you don’t want to do) so if its any good, I’m doing it now, or rather I’m letting you have some figures before I put them on a form. I received the assessment (I didn’t know you did that) and I think I can do better.
Car travel- mileage is a big lot down on last year’s because I’ve stopped buggering about with half a dozen pictures here and there, and started concentrating selling on the boat.
It occurred to me that from the end of October to Easter, we live at Barneybees and I work there, and perhaps I could claim for some heat and light. I sit at the back of the house, and apart from the cold wind up me nethers, the winter light varies so much (plus I can’t afford to stop at lighting-up time) I keep three 100watt lamps permanently lit, one above me and one to either side.
One other thing; our little boy has started his own business. He had some maternity grant and allowance left over, and rather than put it in the bank and let it rot (just under £100) I did some ink drawings and had them printed with his money and he’s getting the return, which is all being ploughed back in on more prints- higher numbers to get the price down, and that’s how it will go on for a few years yet. Now at what point do you take an interest, and what do I have to do about it?
In the assessment it said I have to appeal if I don’t accept it. Can we call this letter the appeal, or do I have to write to somebody else?
P.S. Last year I never got a song sheet showing what the final score was, so could you let me have one, please?
-oOo-
Hello Mr Driscoll,
Eyes down, look in for your first numbers-
I think I’ve only got two dodgy expenses (I don’t think they’re dodgy; you might, if you weren’t such a jolly fine chap, that is) one is my sister-in-law’s train fare from Harrogate, to come and babysit (free- we had to feed her, but what can you do?) for an exhibition week when Valerie (the wife) was teaching (and one of your mates has collected on that somewhere), and the other is the sub to the local sailing club, which I’m not interested in, but we are moored right in the middle of their race course, so it don’t do any harm to be friends with them ,and we have had the odd sale to members.
Right, that’s it for 83/84- do your best- for me, that is, not for H.M.-I think she’s alright for a bob or two.
-oOo-
As you know, I submitted details of my income and expenditure for 84/85 assessment (83/84 figures) about the end of April this year. I didn’t actually fill in one of your forms because they didn’t have enough boxes for the breakdown, but wrote the figures out on plain paper, and I think that may be where the problem arises (“What problem?” I hear you cry- Read on MacDuff).
On Sept. 18th,your office issued a note to me, signed with your own fair rubber stamp to say that you accepted my computations. Then this week I received (shock-horror-bloody-hell-quick-nurse-the-screens!)
‘Allowances restricted in the absence of completed tax returns’
Now I’m not teaching Grandma to milk ducks when I say this- just getting things straight in my own head- you tell me what my allowances are; I don’t tell you, but you determine my allowances by reviewing my circumstances, which brings us back to the actual form which I didn’t fill in, (but I didn’t fill one in last year, either) so relevant circumstances are- I’m still happily married to a jolly expensive woman (but lovely) and we still have one hungry, growing child.
If you still want me to fill in yer actual form, let me have one, please, or just ask any questions you like, but please sort it out as sharpish as mayhap because I’m fast running out of brown trousers.
-oOo-
D.H.S.S 27.3.85
Dear Sirs,
I am in receipt of your letter of 4.1.85, received 26.3.85 in which you ask for more money, viz: 82/83- 47 s/e contrib. 3credits. 2 missing.
I believe 82/83 was covered in a bulk payment of over £500 after being leaned on by one of your ‘heavies’. He came looking for the mythical biscuit tin full of £50s under the bed, and there wasn’t one, so I negotiated a settlement with his handler back in the office.
Now at that time, I paid what you asked for. I tend not to pay more than I’m asked for or Barclays cut up snotty. The credited contributions, I remember, were in respect of a period of unemployment- legit. Trade was non-existent and not likely to revive for some time, and meanwhile there was a queue of people at the door with unpaid bills and hatchets in their hands, so I threw myself on the Parish.
The period of unemployment was definitely more than three weeks, which indicates four, and with the first umpteen days of claim being ‘nilled’ (their odious expression, not mine) it could have run to five. Perhaps you would like to check with your friends down the hall, or upstairs or downstairs or in my lady’s chamber; they’re in the same building.
Do I still pay contributions when registered sick? After the visit from your trained gorilla/money sniffer- outer, I had a stamp card for a while, and I remember writing ‘sick’ in a couple of spaces or so- maybe somebody didn’t see it- that could be an answer. Being an Asthma sufferer I spend weeks hors-de-combat every year, and being married to a schoolteacher, I get all the latest flu-bugs served up with supper.
My general reaction to your letter is this; you decide what I pay, not me (in fact for the past year or so, you have been helping yourselves) and I can’t see how you would just ‘forget’ to ask for two weeks subs. So if it was due, you would have asked for it, and it would have been paid. If it wasn’t paid, then you didn’t ask for it, and you must have had a reason not to. Either way, I feel you know the answer, not me. You’ve got more access to records than I have. All I’ve got are a Nellie Lutcher L.P. and a few old 78s.
Of course, if I’ve got to pay up again then I will, but I’d like us to do a bit of digging first, and you’ve got the big shovel.
Y.F.
-oOo-
Dear Tax Lady, from 84/85 tax return
Unusual items to ponder- in my favour
Last summer we bought a new engine because the old one was clapped out, and somewhat unreliable, so we sold the old one. Now I remember from my evil past in shop fitting, that replacement plant is tax deductible. The new engine is a 7h.p. Mercury, electric start, and boot’ful!
Also you don’t know that I suffer from Asthma, in fact last harvest, I ground to a halt, and finished up in West Norwich Hospital, on the brink of expiry, and with the electric start I don’t have to pull that string just press the button and that save me a lot of trouble in the chesticles of s damp morning when I’m out with me pad and pen at the crack of sparrowfart in all that mist and damplitude looking for pictures to keep grottles happy and they don’t know how I suffer can you get tax relief on medical grounds?
Then in the winter I hulled out the dinghy and was hard pressed to find a sound bit to pull on, and I thought its silly to hang this lovely engine on this rotten old transome, so we beached her for good (she still serves a purpose being painted like a Barneybee, and up high and dry on the bank, she catches the punters’ eye) but as a dinghy she is dead, so we bought a new dinghy.
Next. For Fathers’ Day last year my boy bought me a camera, with wide and telephoto lens attachments. Now these are really replacements because when ‘Walrus’ sank in the winter of 78/79, one of my losses was a very useful camera. It was in a desk drawer, submerged, and by the time I got the drawer open, the camera was just a plastic case full of variegated rust, and I never replaced it.
I hope I’m not shattering your illusions about suffering artists, but I’m not an artist, I’m only a picture painter and I go by the shortest route. I know that 50 quid sounds a lot against tax but I recall one sunset photo that I stuck a wherry in front of on a 20x16 and that sold for130 odd, and that’s only one, and it must have given me dozens, so its not unreasonable, is it? I knew you’d see it my way.
As I sit here in the lamplight with a modest glass of Vino Paralitico (Chateau Barneybees, last Sunday,9.30) at my elbow, and listen to the steady thrum of the ducks outside, gently propagating the species (I don’t think they get any sleep) I look back over this tale of modest success, in these days of ‘Dear Sir, unless..’ and another gone to the wall every time you blink, and I think well I know they can chop my arms and legs off if they’ve a mind to, but they must have bigger fish to fry and haven’t I got problems enough when here we are in May and the wife still wanting to wear shoes I keep telling her you can go barefoot for the summer like the rest of the family like we’ve always done and what about my boy how can he go to school in two years’ time and say my Daddy’s a bankrupt and you sounded such a lovely woman on the phone I’m sure you’ll deal kindly with me your Ladyship God bless you I would grovel some more but it won’t run to another sheet of paper the overheads are killing me
Regards.