How to make HMRC 'Quite Interesting' (QI TV prog)

BBC TVs QI comedy panel show once focused on the 'Inland Revenue'. (Series I Episode 10)

Some of the stories are worth repeating on this blog:

The world's most exotic tax inspectors are in Pakistan. If you refuse to pay your tax you are shamed into paying it by receiving a visit from a team of tax inspectors who are all transgender. They would then sing and dance in your place of business until you paid up. 

In Andhra Pradesh, India, tax inspectors use drummers to get people to pay tax, by standing outside the place of business and banging on the drums loudly until they pay up. The comedians on the show considered how the 'Inland Revenue' might achieve a similar outcome here. The favoured conclusion was to send in the Morris Dancers.

Sandi Toksvig once spent three days with a tax man who investigated all of her accounts. In the end he did not find anything and the taxman said: "To be honest Miss Toksvig, I just wanted to meet you."

Dara O'Briain recalled an actor who tried to claim his carpet against tax because of the wear and tear he caused when he walked up and down while he learnt his lines. He did not get away with it. 

Dara himself once tried to claim for a bed but failed, while Sandi attempted to claim for some paintings in her office, failing as well. She told the tax inspector that no-one could possibly work in an office which had no art in it. Sandi looked around the inspector's office and saw that it had just one poster in it, which explained the Heimlich manoeuvre.

NB: This episode was first broadcast in 2011 and clearly no one had told the researchers or producers that HMRC took over from the Inland Revenue 6 years earlier in April 2005. 

The episode was hosted by Stephen Fry with Alan Davies and guests Al Murray, Dara O'Briain and Sandi Toksvig.  

10 song titles reworked for accountants

1. 2 4 6 8 what do we depreciate?
2. Debit to the left of you, credit to the right, stuck in the balance-sheet with you 
3. We can work it out 
4. Let's get digital 
5. The windfall taxes of my mind 
6. I would do anything for love but I won't do VAT 
7. I can't get no Corps Taxation 
8. Living by numbers 
9. Spreadsheet a little happiness 
10.  Anything by Johnny Cash Basis

The accountant's survival kit

You can buy these online - containing a mix of any or all of the following:

1. Boiled sweets - to crunch and give you energy to crunch the numbers
2. Piece of string - to help you tie up loose ends
3. Ace of Spades - so you can make the most of any hand you are dealt
4. Tea bag - for when you get into hot water
5. Safety pin - to help you pin point problems areas
6. Paper clip - to help you hold it all together
7. Marbles - to replace the ones you will lose
8. Rubber band - to remind you to be flexible about things
9. Mint - so you will always have a fresh outlook
10. Candle - for when you're burning the midnight oil
11. Matches - for the candle
12. Googly eyes - to help you spot any mistakes
13. Balloon - to remind you to always reach for the sky
14. Button - for those times you may need to button your lip
15. Needle and thread - for the button
16. Hair grip - for when you need to get a grip
17. Soft drink in a can - to have a drink on me at the end of a long day

Alternative names for HMRC

Back in 2004 the FT asked its readers to come up with a name for the merging departments of the Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise. The merger took effect from April 2005 since when the organisation has been known as HMRC or HM Revenue & Customs or simply The Revenue. Plenty in the media and in Parliament have also continued to refer to the body, incorrectly, as the Inland Revenue - as if the last 7 years had never happened).

The winning entry in the FT's competition was suggested by Ed Troup, who is now Director General Tax and Welfare at HM Treasury. He suggested: Finance Collection UK though it would have been known by its initials, were they not already in use by the retail chain French Connection.

 Other suggestions included:

• iTax 
• Taxes R Us

With the benefit of 7 years experience, what abbreviations or names might be more appropriate now if The Revenue was to go for a rebrand?

Those I've seen suggested recently include:

• As an acronym HMRC is HoMewReCker!
• Department of National Financing 
• Department of National Funding 
• Department of Social Financing
• Duties, Income Levies, Deductions, Operations (but that might have some initial problems)
• DRC = Department for Revenue Collection
• P I N C H - Processing Income Now Creates Help (...for tomorrow) 
• Crown Revenue Service 
• British Revenue Services 

Any more?

10 new theatre shows for accountants

1. There's a SUM thing About Mary - A jolly new musical about the financial realities of raising an infant in biblical times. 
2. Seven loopholes for seven brother accountants 
3. Planes, trains and auditors 
4. A Tax Inspector Calls 
5. Much ado about xero 
6. The Sums of Navarrone 
7. Tax Fiddler on the Roof 
8. 42nd spreadsheet
9. The bookkeeper of Mormon
10. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Auditor

Football and accountancy in one joke?

A local football team is desperate for players. So desperate in fact that one Sunday they are forced to play a chicken. Rather surprisingly the chicken has a brilliant first half. One minute it's clearing off its own line, the next threading the perfect through ball, the next putting in a perfect cross.

At half time all its team-mates are very pleased and everyone runs back onto the pitch for the second half.

On the way the ref starts chatting with the chicken.

"Great first half mate, you must be really fit".

"Thanks", replied the chicken, "I try to keep myself fit but it's difficult finding the time so I try to do an hour in the gym each morning before work".

"What do you do then?" asked the ref.

"I'm a chartered accountant" replies the chicken.

At this point the ref immediately brandishes the red card and sends the chicken off. The bemused team-mates gather round the ref and start complaining.

"Sorry lads", says the ref, "I had no choice - Professional fowl".

Drawing up the hearse and letting them smell the flowers

When I was a partner in a large firm one of my colleagues had an enviable reputation. 

He was a really nice guy and yet was also renowned for his ability to persuade prospective clients that their problems were much worse than they had assumed when they arrived for meetings with him. 

He described his approach as: "Drawing up the hearse and letting them smell the flowers". 

I was reminded of this recently when I was told about one of the Big 4 firms. Apparently they studiously avoid giving any advice during initial meetings with prospective clients. 

I was told: "If you go in knowing nothing, you know nothing more coming out, but you're very, very scared!"