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?

What is an ACCOUNTANT?

An ACCOUNTANT is someone who:

Analyses figures 

Calculates calmly 

Counsels clients 

Organises chaos 

Unlocks understanding 

Navigates numbers 

Tames tax 

Avoids assumptions 

Nurtures trust 

Transforms businesses