10 more popular films with accountancy related themes

1. Minority audit report – In a future where a special audit unit is able to establish whether accounts are true and fair before they start their fieldwork, an officer from that unit is himself accused of a future fraud. 
2. File Hard with a vengeance - A tax adviser gets a little carried away when he can't access the Companies House portal he uses to submit annual accounts. 
3. The Signing – An auditor becomes possessed while on an away job in an isolated hotel where an evil and spiritual presence influences the RI, while his audit team sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future. 
4.  Final estimation – a group of young auditors try and fail to escape death after miscalculating depreciation charges. 
5. The Accountant - Chaos ensues when an efficient accountant who is a bit too focused on his work forgets to keep track of his time and which client should pay the bills. 
6. ACA Ventura: PET detective – Jim Carrey stars as a personal tax accountant who goes in search of a dolphin gifted as a potentially exempt transfer for inheritance tax purposes. 
7. Accrual Runnings – a team of Jamaican accountants with absolutely no knowledge of UKGAAP come to the UK and set up as an audit firm. Hilarity ensues. 
8. SA SA Land - a musical imagining of what would happen if everyone filed their SA tax returns with a smile each year 
9. Home A-Loan – an incredibly boring film about a child trying to get a mortgage but failing because he’s too young. 
10. Groundhog day - An outgoing accountant resolves never again to allow his clients to force him to work crazy hours in January.

Taxing questions at Christmas

An unexpected enquiry arrived in the Tax Advice Network's inbox this week.

“I am becoming increasingly concerned about my potential liability to UK taxes.

I am non-domiciled and non-resident (I think) – certainly no permanent home here – but each December I work temporarily in the UK for a very intensive 24-hour period.

The work is unpaid, but I do receive millions of unsolicited (though habitual) benefits in kind such as glasses of port, mince pies and assorted festive treats. 

I am worried I should have declared these to HMRC. 

Their total value must be substantial, but I have no idea how to measure it. Is there an annual tax liability… and if so, how on earth would I value a mince pie in Aberdeen versus one in Acton?

I’m also getting anxious about Making Tax Digital.

As a sole trader, must I start filing quarterly updates in 2026? I genuinely don’t know whether my turnover exceeds the £50,000 threshold. 

Do I count the notional value of billions of gifts delivered worldwide? And what about barter transactions — a carrot for a reindeer surely isn’t taxable… is it?

If I am subject to tax, I’d like to offset my travel costs and the expense of my vehicle and support team — none of whom are on my payroll. 

Can I also deduct the cost of customer gifts? They’re not food or drink, but they don’t carry my business logo either.

I like to think I’m being nice… but am I actually naughty? Should I seek proper advice or can I safely ignore my self assessment and MTD filing obligations?

The message was signed “S. Claus”.

5 new Christmas carols for accountants

Frosty the Snowman → Frosty the Taxman 

Do You Hear What I Hear? → Do You See What I See?

That mystery journal entry no one claims to have posted.

Deck the Halls → Check the Files
A surprisingly festive activity when everything finally reconciles

While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks → While Accountants Watched Their Clocks
Almost December… almost time to mutter “next year will be different”.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas → It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Crunch Time
Every January. Without fail.

An accountant's shocking Christmas confession

Seen on a website for anonymous confessions: 

 

"I’m an accountant. Every Christmas our office has a secret vote for the client who has been the biggest pain in the backside. We then report the winner to HMRC regardless of whether we have any concerns about their tax affairs. Invariably they get a full audit so we get more work. It’s win win".

10 new taxes the Chancellor avoided in the Budget

1. Zoom Face Tax – £2 each time you say, “Can you see my screen?” when you clearly can’t. 
2. Inbox Zero Tax – payable by anyone who publicly claims to have achieved it. (Doubles if they post about it on LinkedIn.) 
3. Self-Checkout Tax – 5p per “unexpected item in the bagging area.” 
4. Password Reset Duty – £3 each time you click ‘Forgot password’. 
5. Hybrid Working Hypocrisy Tax – £10 for every manager who says “work from anywhere” but frowns when you actually do. 
6. LinkedIn Humblebrag Duty – £50 per post that begins “I’m honoured and humbled to announce…” 
7. Dishwasher Diplomacy Tax – £10 fine for re-stacking someone else’s perfectly good attempt. 
8. Weather Small-Talk Duty – 20p per conversation opened with “Cold, isn’t it?” 
9. DIY Overconfidence Charge – £50 for starting a project with “How hard can it be?” 
10. Autocorrect Excise – 10p for every text where “ducking” was clearly not the intended word.

Sometimes we're not as clear as we might be....

Accountants frequently ask new clients to either bring their passport into the office or to supply certified copies of the passport. 

It's a requirement of the anti-money laundering regulations. 

An accountant told me that a new client once sent him an unusual package. 

On opening it the accountant found a copy of the client's passport. What else? Another one. Same as the first. And another, and another. 

Indeed the package simply contained almost 3 dozen photocopies of the client's passport. None had been certified by a solicitor - or anyone. 

The accountant called the client to acknowledge receipt of the package and to find out why he had sent so many copies - and not had any of them certified. 

The client was pleased to hear the package had arrived safely. 

"I should have checked as I must have misheard you. 'Certified copies' makes much more sense. I thought you asked for 35 copies."

A variation on The Traitors - just for accountants

The Tax Avoiders 

Twenty accountants gather in a grand country estate for what’s billed as “a professional ethics retreat.” 

Unbeknownst to the majority, three are secretly Tax Avoiders — slick operators who still believe it’s “perfectly legitimate” to run your income through a dormant company in Gibraltar. 

Their mission: blend in, smile politely, and drop hints about “completely legal loopholes” without getting caught. 

Each day, the group faces ethical challenges such as: 

• Would you still take on a client if they paid in crypto and said ‘don’t ask’? 
• Spot the disguised remuneration scheme
• Rebrand a tax shelter as a ‘wealth retention structure’ ” 
• Bonus round: Design a new company car scheme that somehow includes a yacht. 

The faithful accountants spend their evenings debating clues around the dinner table. 

• “Did you hear her say ‘aggressive planning’ or ‘HMRC will never notice’?” 
• “I swear he winked when someone mentioned ‘creative compliance’.” 

Meanwhile, the Avoiders sneak off to the drawing room to whisper about EBTs, letters of comfort, and how they’re “friends with a barrister who says it’s fine.” 

At The Reconciliation Dinner, one accountant is expelled each night. 

Accusations fly: 

• “He’s too smooth — definitely used to speak at film partnership seminars.” 
• “She said she ‘advises high-net-worth individuals’. That’s code for trouble.” 
• “He called HMRC ‘the opposition’ as if he's in a constant battle with them” 

By the final episode, only a handful remain — desperately trying to decide who’s clean and who once claimed a yacht as a ‘mobile meeting facility’. 

Will integrity prevail? Or will one of the Tax Avoiders walk away with the super-high fee — and the quiet confidence that they’ll have moved to Dubai long before HMRC come knocking?