Taxing issues ...


Many of our readers will have filed their tax returns for the year 2008-2009 and made their payments on account for 2009-2010.


It is a time when the Inland Revenue are under a huge workload, dealing with inaccurate assessments, grumpy tax payers and the usual round of excuses for late payment.


So, you have to admire the following letter in response to a particularly irate ‘client’. It shows that there is, at least, a sense of humour in the offices of the Inland Revenue


Dear Mr Addison,


I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more than prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise. I will address them, as ever, in order.


Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a “begging letter”. It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a “tax demand”. This is how we at the Inland Revenue have always, for reasons of accuracy, traditionally referred to such documents.


Secondly, your frustration at our adding to the “endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat” has been noted. However, whilst I have naturally not seen the other letters to which you refer, I would cautiously suggest that they being from “pauper councils, Lombardy pirate banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers” might indicate that your decision to “file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies” is, at best, a little ill-advised.


In common with my own organisation, it is


simply could not comply as the environmental conditions associated with working outside in winter would render the legally required tacho discs and printouts liable to damage, general filth and loss. I pointed out that dirty, defaced or missing paperwork is not acceptable to VOSA. I said I would maintain a log in a page a day


diary and update the tacho discs and tacho printouts at a later date using data from the log book when back at base. SWMBO still insisted on interpreting the VOSA


regulations to the letter, requiring manual entries written on tacho discs or printouts as the only acceptable record, and reminding me that this was enforceable by a £200 on the spot fine. When I said so be it, you told me that I had to


put in a system to comply, and when I suggest such a system that met the spirit if not the exact letter of the law, you forcefully repeat that, to comply, I must do what I cannot do and immediately keep the records required on the rear of the tacho disc or the rear of a very flimsy printout from a digital tachograph. Now I set her up for the following classic


example of doublespeak. I asked her how I could meet the requirement


for 28 days of historical records that have to be kept in the cab when driving under tacho regs as, thanks to Christmas, New Year and the extended snow and frost, my vehicles have been sitting idle for the better part of 28 days. She replied that I cannot possibly be expected


to have records where there are none, but that VOSA traffic examiners would be expected to question the driver to get a detailed account of why there are missing records. I pointed out that the VOSA questioning would


require that the driver had some records in one form or another, even if only in his memory, and that her reply was doublespeak worthy of Sir Humphrey Appleby from the much loved Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister TV series. A long pause ensued without a reply, so I


asked if a record of working time, holidays and days of rest, kept for the purpose of the Working Time Directive (WTD), would be of assistance at such a time. She took the bait, hook, line and sinker.


unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a “lackwit bumpkin” or, come to that, a “sodding charity”. More likely they see you as a citizen of Great Britain, with a responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of the nation as a whole.


Which brings me to my next point. Whilst there may be some spirit of truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay “go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services”, a moment’s rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to “stump up for the whole damned party” yourself.


The estimates you provide for the Chancellor’s disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are, in fairness, a little off the mark. Less than you seem to imagine is spent on “junkets for Bunterish lickspittles” and “dancing whores” whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for example, “that box-ticking facade of a university system.”


A couple of technical points arising from direct queries:


“Yes”, she replied, “such a record would be


helpful”. I pressed on, getting grudging


acknowledgement that the time between the end of a shift and the start of the next shift is considered to be rest and does not need to be recorded (in the UK, but not everywhere in Europe), and that it is impossible to record weekly rest periods on tachograph media and that, should such records be queried, a note book kept by the driver would be helpful evidence. I reminded her that the WTD allows me to


select any form of records I think fit, and I choose to keep the records in my diary. I said that she had just stated that my working diary is acceptable to VOSA for some manually kept records purposes but not for others. A long silence ensued as she realised the extent to which she had been trapped into even more doublespeak. I took a while (gloating) before breaking the


silence by asking a question to establish that I do not require a Goods Vehicles Operator’s licence under the Goods Vehicle Operator Licencing Act 1995. She who must be obeyed confirmed that I was exempt from any requirements as an operator as I only use dual purpose vehicles. I asked if an Operator could be defined as he


who should be licensed under the operator licensing system? SWMBO swallowed that one as well and


agreed the definition but, when I pulled the line taught, she tried to wriggle of the hook by saying that I was still an operator for the purposes of the tachograph acts. So I am, and am not, a Goods Vehicle Operator. Oh the joys of dealing with the MoD -t Ministry of Doublespeak -m


the my new name for the


department of transport, a wonderful example of joined up government! SWMBO ended by saying “You should be


aware that it is VOSA’s policy to target drivers or operators who are known to be non-c Ooooh, that sounded like a threat, and


compliant”.


threats just get me madder! I snapped back that if VOSA feel that focusing


1. The reason we don’t simply write “Muggins” on the envelope has to do with the vagaries of the postal system;


2. You can rest assured that “sucking the very marrow of those with nothing else to give” has never been considered as a practice because, even if the Personal Allowance didn’t render it irrelevant, the sheer medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable.


I trust this has helped. In the meantime, whilst I would not in any way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, I ought to point out that, even if you did choose to “give the whole foul jamboree up and go and live in India”, you would still owe us the money.


Please send it to us by Friday.


Yours sincerely, H J Lee Customer Relations Inland Revenue


Received by email and originally published in The Guardian


their fire on my small operation is a correct use of limited public money and resources, at a time of a severe public spending deficit, and that such an expenditure of time and effort is worth the absolutely minimal improvement to the safety of our roads that would result, then she must do as she feels she must. Here the conversation came to an abrupt halt. The correspondence continues, with me


seeking ever more detailed definitions of how VOSA require me to act in the multiplicity of situations that are quite usually encountered during my work. I have seen the levels of frustration and


general ‘harpyness’ increase letter by letter. I have just sent off another batch of queries


about absurdities arising from the legislators trying to micromanage my working time. Later on, I will send off a number of other


queries arising from the 100km horticultural exemption to tie up some more VOSA executive time.. So, as well as grumpy, I can be a persistently


annoying and very irritating old git when I get put out.


As we were going to press we received the


following from David: I now have what I wanted, a letter from the VOSA Policy Advisor refusing to give me advice on VOSA policy! She finally cracked under sustained


questioning. The straws that broke the camel’s back were: a) Whether I could study during so called rest


periods and, in particular, study regulations reference my work b) On the definition of what proportion of a


load has to be clearly for horticultural purposes before the horticultural exemption can be claimed. 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%? Her Problem: Carefully chosen questions


where there is no definition given anywhere in the regulations and no case law. That clearly lit her self destruct fuse as she


now refuses any further communication with me.


Makes a fine end to my story, does it not?


Grumpy corner


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