Are HMRC scared of witches putting spells on them?

Some years back the Romanian government passed a law to tax the income of witches, fortune tellers, and astrologers.

Associated Press had previously reported that Romanian senators rejected a proposal to tax witches and fortune tellers. The suggestion was that they were scared of hearing those feared words:

"Abracadabra, we'll turn all of you into toads!"

At that time the draft law would have required witches and fortune tellers to produce receipts, and would also have held them liable for wrong predictions!

The BBC then reported that the witches were using cat excrement and dead dogs to cast spells on the government for making them pay income tax. Apparently Magic and superstition in Romania are taken very seriously. The president and his aides wear purple on Thursdays, allegedly to ward off evil spirits.

Somehow I can't imagine HMRC being worried about wrong predictions. They get enough of these from 'experts' ;-)

A Valentine message for an Accountant

Debits are left

Credits are right

When I looked at you

Love at first sight.

Roses are Red

Violets are Blue

Balanced Ledgers

Have me thinking of you

Unbalanced Accounts 

Are near misses

Perfect though

Are your hugs and kisses

Fraud makes me sad

You make me glad

Please be my Accountant Valentine

(David Albrecht)

How to simplify the PAYE system (or not!)

I'm told that an official from HMRC, who wishes to remain anonymous, has identified two key changes that would simplify our PAYE system and avoid most problems:

1. Stop anyone from having more than one job at a time; and
2. Only allow people to change jobs at midnight on 5 April each year.

No - I don't think they were serious.

Do you have any other ideas in a similar vein?

Analogies for how HMRC operates

If HMRC ran a café it would drag passers-by in from the street, 

force them to cook their own lunch, 

then fine them for overcooking the eggs. 

Two weeks later, it would dispatch a leaflet explaining that cooking eggs is easy! 

But doubling the fine.

This analogy formed part of Richard Godwin's Comment piece in The London Evening Standard on 21 December 2011.

Can you do better?

Internal auditors can miss the obvious.

An internal auditor for a manufacturing group was concerned about anomalies in stock levels. He thought someone might be pinching stock but he couldn’t prove it. He had his eye on one shifty-looking individual who every day drove his old truck out of the factory with the load covered by a tarpaulin.

Time after time the auditor stopped the bloke, made him remove the tarpaulin and then inspected the load. On every occasion there was only scrap metal in the truck which the driver said he was taking to the tip. On three occasions the auditor made the bloke remove the tarpaulin and then unload the scrap in front of him, suspecting that there might be stolen stock hidden underneath. Nothing. He could never find anything amiss.

After a few months of this the auditor was offered a better job elsewhere and resigned. A few weeks later he was drinking in a pub when the shifty character walked in. On an impulse the auditor went up to him and said, “Look, I’ve left the company, I’m not interested in taking it any further and I won’t shop you, but I just have to know. What were you nicking?”

And the bloke said “Tarpaulins.”

Searching for an accountant

A business owner tells her friend that she is desperately searching for an accountant.

Her friend asks, “Didn’t your company hire an accountant a short while ago?”

The business owner replies, “That’s the accountant I’ve been searching for.

5 more accounting quickies

My accountant printed this year's balance sheet in colour - red.

What's the definition of unlikely?
- A photo-spread in Playboy titled 'The World's Top Accountants - Nude!'

There are three kinds of accountants in the world.
- Those who can count and those who can't.

A fool and his money are soon audited

Accounting: a collection of figures running around looking for an argument