Letter to the taxman

Below is text from an actual letter received by the Revenue Commissioners at Co. Longford, Ireland, from a farmer in reply to a final income tax demand.

Dear Sirs,
Your letter arrived this morning in an open envelope and it would have given my son and myself pleasure had it not revived in us a melancholy reflection of thought the account could have been settled long ago, and you could not understand why it hadn't. Well, here is the reason.

In 1987 I purchased a hay shed on credit. In 1988 I bought a combine harvester, a manure spreader, two horses, a double barrel shifter, two cows and ten razor back pigs, also on credit.

In 1989 the bloody hay shed burnt to the ground leaving not a damn thing. I got no insurance either as the bloody premium lapsed. One of the horses went lame and I loaned the other one to my brother who starved the poor bugger to death.

In 1990 my father died and my brother was put away when he tried to marry one of his sheep named Hilda. A knacker got my daughter pregnant and I had to pay him a grand to stop him becoming one of my relatives.

In 1991 my son got the mumps which spread to his balls and he had to be castrated to save his life. Later in the year I went fishing on the Shannon and the bloody boat overturned, drowning two of my sons, neither being the [censored] eunuch who was by now wearing his sister's make-up and dresses. Not long after he emigrated to America with the new parish priest. They are now married and trying for children.

In 1992 my wife ran away with a pig jobber from Drumlish and left me with new-born twins as a souvenir and I had to get a housekeeper, so I married her to keep down expenses. I had a hell of a job getting her pregnant (to qualify for more children's allowance). I went to see the doctor. He advised me to create some excitement at the crucial moment so that night I brought my shotgun to bed and when I thought the moment was right I leaned out of bed and shot both barrels through the window, the wife [censored] the bed, I ruptured myself, and the next morning I found I had blown both doors off the barn, shot my best dairy cow and killed the [censored] knacker who was in the hay loft with my daughter trying to get more money out of me, which he did because I had to pay for the [censored]'s funeral expenses.

The next year, 1993, someone cut the balls off my prize bull, poisoned the water, and set fire to the house. I was bolloxed and took to the drink and did not stop until all I had left was a pocket watch and a weak bladder. Winding the watch and running for a [censored] kept me busy for a time.

This year I took heart again and bought (on the hire purchase) a bulldozer, tractor and trailer and a new bull. Then the Shannon flooded and washed the bloody lot away, my second wife got VD from a land inspector and my last surviving son died from wiping his [censored] on a poisoned rabbit I had put down for dogs who were worrying my sheep.

It surprises me very much that you say you will cause trouble if I don't pay up. If you can think of anything I've missed I should like to know about it.

Trying to get money out of me will be like trying to butter a hedgehog's hole backwards with a knitting needle. I'm praying for a cloud of cat [censored] to pass your way and I hope it will fall on you and the [censored] in your office who sent me this final demand.

Yours for more credit,
John Murphy

Do strippers make ideal clients for accountants?

I recently heard about an accountant who specialises in strippers. Whereas other accountants might focus on solicitors(!), hospital consultants, charities or any other business sector, his reasons seem quite logical:

• They are generally honest
• They are high earners with good cashflow
• They are quite up front (literally, apparently)
• They often have big assets (Can't believe I'm typing this!)
• They pay in cash in advance (as they have so much of it)

Are readers aware of any other less common and vaguely amusing target sectors for accountants looking to specialise?

Why are the accountants listed in film credits always female?

I heard today about an accountant who tells everyone he meets that this is a fact of life. When you look at the credits that roll after a film is over, there is always an accountant listed and it's always a woman.

Now, ok, maybe it's only accountants who read the credits that far down, but is this true?

Has anyone else noticed this? Or even looked?

Have you ever been so insulted?

I'm addressing that question to the accountants who read this blog.

In today's Sunday Times Rod Liddle reports on a discussion about how to rebrand Gordon Brown. He talks to Saffron, a branding company run by Wally Olins CBE who is reported in the paper as thinking that the public could end up feeling sorry for Gordon Brown who should remember:

"..what made him attractive to the party in the first place..."

And what was that exactly? Mr Olins expands:

"This is what happens when you put an accountant in charge of the company. Disaster. The voters liked the double act of Blair and Brown; they understood that one was about presentation and ideas and the other was about accounting. That worked"

I'm not sure what's worse. The suggestion that Mr Brown is an accountant, that it's an insult to him to describe him that way or the suggestion that accountants are not qualified to run a company effectively.

I've explained elsewhere why I disagree with the campaign to limit use of the term 'accountant' to those of us who have relevant professional qualifications. Perhaps I need to revise my view if it would help distinguish qualified accountants from politicians with no accounting training or experience whatsoever!

Tax Tunes

A recent US TV Channel broadcast an expose of a Team building training session for US Revenue officials (known as tax auditors) in which they revise the words of popular songs to create their own "Tax Tunes". Videos shot during the training sessions are featured in both part one and part two of the News Channel 5 programmes.

To save you the pain though here are some 'highlights':

To the tune of "Hey Jude," one group sings, "Hey, dude, the check is in the mail."

Another group dances to the music of "Eye of the Tiger," instead celebrating the "eye of the auditor."

One auditor dressed in an aluminum-foil cone bra, sings Madonna's "Like a Virgin" as "Like an Auditor."

To the music of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" another group sings about fuel taxes. "Burn, burn, burn."

Still another group sings, "We're working for the tax money on the chain gang."

"Oh, oh, we're toiling on the chain gang.
And we're frightening taxpayers while we're working
On the chain gang."

To the tune of "In Da Club," a black-clad group raps, "Go. Go. Go, money. It's your tax day."

One group chimed:

"It's my audit,
And I'll tax if I want to.
Tax if I want to.
Tax if I want to."

Another one sang "Taxpayer, watch out! Watch out for me!" - and:

"I'll be there
To come and audit you.
I'll be there.
No matter what you do."

There's also one where the tax auditors worry about not digging up any dirt during what we'd call a tax investigation:

"We all remember being blue,
Another audit no tax due.
We were sure that we were screwed.
The day the bills went through."

Guess what he's talking about

It was only when I was gifted a subscription to 'Private Eye' for my 50th birthday that I became an avid reader and fan. What have I been missing all these years?!

I've already commented on one item from this week's issue on my Tax Advice Network blog. This one is in a similar vein but more light hearted as befits this blog.

It concerns Tory backbencher Sir Nicholas Winterton and quotes an extract of his contribution to a debate in the House of Commons, as recorded in Hansard on on 7 July:

I am concerned about the elderly who need to use [xxxx].
Is [the Minister] concerned about the fact that elderly people, in particular, may not be getting value for money or a fair deal, because the system is so complicated that they do not understand how to go through it...?.

Of course you might imagine the xxxx refers to some element of the tax or tax credits system. It could so easily do so, couldn't it?! In fact Sir Nicholas was bemoaning the difficulties that the elderly have with public transport. If only that was all they had to worry about.

Do prostitutes charge VAT?

Back in 2002 a High Court judge ruled that the VATman is perfectly entitled to pursue prostitutes. Mr Justice Jacob decided that members of the world's oldest profession should not be allowed to exploit a loophole because of their illegal activities and avoid paying VAT.

The case followed an earlier VAT tribunal ruling that an escort agency was unlawful and therefore could not be taxed.

The tribunal said the business "consists wholly, or at least very substantially, of the procurement of women for the purposes of their becoming common prostitutes".

When the tribunal found that the agency was "straightforwardly criminal", it meant that Customs and Excise could not claim VAT.

The owners had always claimed their business was lawful but said their turnover was below the threshold for VAT. But the judge overturned the ruling. He said: "I conclude that this case is not within the very narrow rules which allow moral scruple by a paradox to reward criminality by exempting it from taxation."

Under EU harmonisation of taxation, VAT is payable on a wide range of services without any difference being drawn over whether it is legal or illegal. Only drug dealing and counterfeit money apparently escape being taxed.