A customer complains to HMRC...

Dear Inspector of Taxes
I see from your website that you regard me as a customer. This makes you my supplier and I am therefore writing to tell you that I have decided to look for an alternative supplier. This is your last chance to improve your service.

Let me tell you why my wife and I are fed up to the back teeth with the way you have looked after us of later:

- To help even out our cashflow, when we have surplus funds, we lodge them with you as a pre-payment of part of our forthcoming tax bill. However you hardly ever send us statements that show us where we stand with you and when you do send them, they are quite impossible to check or to understand what they mean;
- You never seem to answer the telephone;
- You and your colleagues take an age to deal with the enquiries my accountant has raised with you; and
You seem happy to threaten distraint proceedings at the drop of a hat - never a good idea from a customer service point of view.

If you really were a business you'd have gone bust years ago. You seem to have no idea about how to look after your customers.

As you can see I have become a thoroughly disgruntled and miserable customer. I will never recommend your services to any friend of mine and I long to take my business elsewhere. The problem I face is that there doesn't seem to be any other suppliers of whatever it is you supply.

Yours faithfully.
----
The above letter was written to the Tax Office by a taxpayer who copied it to his accountant Huw Williams of HM Williams, Chartered Accountants and who included it in his newsletter 'Account' 'with a heavy heart'.

Top accountant characters in films

The Accountant - Ben Afflek plays a man who uses his disorder to balance books for criminals.

The Apartment - Jack Lemmon's character CC Baxter introduces himself: "I work on the 19th floor. Ordinary Policy Department, Premium Accounting Division, Section W, desk number 861." 

The Closet - French superstar Daniel Autueil plays an accountant who pretends to be gay to keep his job in a condom factory. 

Dave - Charles Grodin plays the president's accountant and solves the budget deficit in one overnight session, leaving the White House at dawn in his prudent small car. 

Erotica - the lead character is a bearded and gentlemanly accountant who gets increasingly hung up on a sneaky lap dancer whom he is forbidden to touch. 

Ghostbusters - Rick Moranis is an accountant who, although possessed by evil spirits, asks who does monstrous Sigourney Weaver's tax return. 

Hitch - Kevin James plays tax accountant Albert Brennaman, who woos and wins Amber Valletta just by being his booty-shaking, inhaler-snorting, passionate self. 

Jurassic Park - a weasel accountant spurns Jeff Goldblum's advice and gets devoured by a dinosaur. 

Local hero - Denis Lawson plays Gordon Urquhart, the hotel proprietor who is also the local accountant trusted to meet with the locals on behalf of a Texas oil company that wants to purchase the Scottish fishing village.

Midnight Run - Charles Grodin again. Here he plays an accountant who steals from the rich and gives to the poor . Robert De Niro tracks him down when Grodin jumps bail. 

The Producers - In the original film Zero Mostel ropes accountant Gene Wilder into collaborating with him on a scheme to rip off old ladies. In the remake Nathan Lane persuades Matthew Broderick to abandon his accountancy career in favour of becoming a theatrical producer. 

The Royal Tenenbaums - Danny Glover plays accountant Henry Sherman, Angelica Huston's dependable second husband. 

Schindler's List - Ben Kingsley's bespectacled accountant helps save lives. 

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - Danny Kaye stars as a day-dreaming beancounter. 

The Sea Change - Sean Chapman was to have played a 'handsome, dashing and funny KPMG accountant named Rupert Granger.' The script was later revised to make him a banker - but the original idea led to me being interviewed and performing a magic trick on BBC's Newsnight TV programme.

Shallow Grave - Christopher Eccleston played chartered accountant David Stephens who gets drawn into the grisly goings-on in a shared Edinburgh flat. 

She Devil - Ed Begley Jr plays a sleazeball accountant upon whom Rosanne Barr wreaks a hideous revenge. 

The Untouchables - Charles Martin Smith plays accountant Oscar Wallace and conceives the idea of nabbing Al Capone for tax evasion. 

Which parrot should the accountant buy?

An accountant went into a pet shop to buy a parrot for company in his office.

The shop owner showed him a pretty parrot on a perch and explained that it was ideal for an accountant as it knew some mild swear words but only used them when it heard someone say  "HMRC".

The accountant asked how much it was and the shop owner said it was only a hundred pounds.

The accountant felt he could invest more than this so asked if there were any other parrots.

"Certainly" replied the shop owner. "This blue one doesn't swear at the taxman but he will learn your clients' names and greet them personally whenever they come into your office. This one is for sale at one thousand pounds".

This was more than the accountant wanted to spend so he asked the price and talents of a third parrot that was sitting quietly in the corner of the pet shop.

"Aha" said the shop owner. "That's the most expensive parrot. It costs five thousand pounds".

The accountant was astonished any parrot could cost that much. "What the heck can it do?"

To which the shop owner replied "To be honest, I've never seen him do a darn thing, but the other two say he's their Senior Partner."

Fun names for teams of accountants

When I was in South Africa recently I met the managing partner of a firm of accountants called 'Doughgetters'. What a great name.

Here are some more accountancy team names I have also come across online:

• The Accountables
• Accruing respect
• The 3 Bs - Big Bad Bookkeepers
• The cash kings
• The counting consultants
• The counting Countesses
• Double entry deviants
• Figure fraternisers
• Ledgerndary
• Ledger lovers
• LIFO the party
• Ruler of the results
• Sir count-a-lot
• Taxmanian devils
• Three balance sheets to the wind

Others which are perhaps less positive include:

• The Accountaholics
• The bad assets
• Between the spreadsheets
• The cash cows
• Dealers in debits and credits
• Journal junkies
• The pirates of the accountancy
• Spreadsheet snoops
• Sums of anarchy
• Tax terrorists
• The uncountables
• Year end yearners