A new supplementary page for SA tax returns: Application for Mercy

Original is on the clever and fun official looking (but fake) website promoting a book published by Ian Vince:The Department of Social Scrutiny

Yes Prime Minister - How the Treasury work out how much tax to raise

In January 1986 the political comedy " Yes Prime Minister" featured an episode "The Smokescreen" in which The Prime Minister, Jim Hacker, favours abolishing smoking through heavy taxation but he runs into strong opposition from the tobacco lobby and the Treasury department.

The following exchange between the PM and his permanent secretary seemed especially worthy of inclusion on this blog:

Sir Humphrey: Taxation isn't about what you need.
Jim Hacker: Oh, what is it about?
Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, the Treasury doesn't work out what they need to spend and then think how to raise the money.
Jim Hacker: What does it do?
Sir Humphrey: They pitch for as much as they think they can get away with and then think what to spend it on.

Here's the whole episode if you're interested. At the start Sir Humphrey explains his view as to how all new Prime Ministers want to cut either taxes or public expenditure.....

Don't Cha Wish Your Accountant Was Cool Like This

Well done Accountant Annette Ferguson.  Great video revealing those thins Accountants NEVER say - and with good reason!

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?