The taxman calls us customers but I'd prefer to be called...

HMRC claim they need one word that covers both taxpayers and tax credit claimants. So they refer to us as 'customers' - despite the lack of correlation with conventional definitions of the word.

I've written about this on my TaxBuzz blog and have extracted the following for inclusion on this blog.

The first alternative I come up with was 'stakeholders'. But that probably goes too far. Other suggestions to date include:
- Tax Liability Owner
- Victims
- Lemons (as in "squeeze them until the pips squeak")
- "Codees" Anyone who deals with the tax authorities has to have a code, so that's the common element.
- The internal description - Punters?
- I was going to say Victims - but, as that's already taken, how about "Mugs"?
- Suckers seem appropriate for both parties only the first party should have blood tagged in front;
- Cash cow?
- How do pickpockets name their victims?
- Users of HMRC's services
- Citizens [although companies aren't citizens and you don't have to be a citizen to be subject to UK tax]
- Muggles - following on from 'mugs'. Also refers to those who don't quite understand the tax magic.