HM Revenue and bloody Customs!!
So, this morning the postman brings me one of those nice brown
envelopes. Don't you just love your Monday morning starting
like that!
Well, I ignored it for a while as I sipped my first coffee of the day. I was actually on the Cloud minding my own business ... and I SWEAR the envelope crept closer and closer!....so I weakened and opened it.
It said I hadn't paid my VAT bill for the last quarter and if I did it again I would be surcharged (as fun as that sounds I'm not sure I want to be done to my person)
So, I digs out my copies and sure enough I had paid it within the dates specified. Ahhh...but there is the rub! I pay online and when you do you are given a few days extra in which to submit the payment in. So of course I always take it to the wire; mainly 'cos I object to being an unpaid goverment tax collector!
I girded my wotsits and called the helpline. After negotiating the longest fookin' menu I'd heard, and taking a few wrong turns, I found myself talking to a very pleasant young man. I explained my situation, calmly, and said that paying online lets me have a few extra days in which to submit. Ah yes, says he, but you should always pay at least 4 days before that final date!
I lost it then a little. I mean what is the fookin' point of having a due date if you have to pay it a few fookin' days before the final date fookin' due date!!!
They had received my payment by the way, a few days after the final due date, and no I wouldn't be surcharged.
Here's me thinking that by paying online it was immediate! How silly of me!
I need a lie down in a darkened room!
Mac
ps inbetween writing this and posting it I've just had two young Australian girls in the shop buying a postcard each (steak tonight eh!!) They asked me if there were any nice shops to look at in the town. I said yes, plenty, including mine! They turned round and left! gits!!
Pass the whisky!
Mac
Well, I ignored it for a while as I sipped my first coffee of the day. I was actually on the Cloud minding my own business ... and I SWEAR the envelope crept closer and closer!....so I weakened and opened it.
It said I hadn't paid my VAT bill for the last quarter and if I did it again I would be surcharged (as fun as that sounds I'm not sure I want to be done to my person)
So, I digs out my copies and sure enough I had paid it within the dates specified. Ahhh...but there is the rub! I pay online and when you do you are given a few days extra in which to submit the payment in. So of course I always take it to the wire; mainly 'cos I object to being an unpaid goverment tax collector!
I girded my wotsits and called the helpline. After negotiating the longest fookin' menu I'd heard, and taking a few wrong turns, I found myself talking to a very pleasant young man. I explained my situation, calmly, and said that paying online lets me have a few extra days in which to submit. Ah yes, says he, but you should always pay at least 4 days before that final date!
I lost it then a little. I mean what is the fookin' point of having a due date if you have to pay it a few fookin' days before the final date fookin' due date!!!
They had received my payment by the way, a few days after the final due date, and no I wouldn't be surcharged.
Here's me thinking that by paying online it was immediate! How silly of me!
I need a lie down in a darkened room!
Mac
ps inbetween writing this and posting it I've just had two young Australian girls in the shop buying a postcard each (steak tonight eh!!) They asked me if there were any nice shops to look at in the town. I said yes, plenty, including mine! They turned round and left! gits!!
Pass the whisky!
Mac
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23 Comments
Last year, after much agonising I gave them a DD to my account. It means it's up to them to get off their spreading ass and get it. However, it's up to me to ensure there's anough money in there to cover it, of course. The thing is that if you do that they give you another couple of weeks grace. They are going to hound you for it anyway.
My rant is also aimed at the Bloody Government- just a different department. As you know I was made redundant this year (bloody government and their cut backs) so now I am in the job queue with all the other unfortunates who had their jobs wiped out overnight. So I am catapulted from upstanding citizen to sponger. Or that is how I am viewed at the job centre anyway. The entire experience of "signing-on" has left me depressed and frustrated. These are the top reasons why I've hated the whole experience.
1. I have 2 children aged 4 and 5. One is at nursery til 11.45 and one is at school til 3pm. Now my signing on time is 1.05pm. I have to collect the young-un from nursery- give him some lunch and get myself across town, parked up and ready to sign on by 1pm. I rarely manage it. Every time I explain why they write on my form ''child issues'' then tell me I should arrange child care! If I was working I'd be able to do this. Once they made me wait til after 2pm because I was late. I then had the worry that I might not make it back intime to collect the other child at 3pm.
2. My dad died in June. In the week between his death and his funeral they had me up at that job centre twice- to discuss my ''part time work". If I'd been working I'd have been on compassionate leave. I told em this but it fell on deaf ears. I also had to prove I'd applied to at least 4 jobs- all this while organising a funeral and dealing with my grief.
3. Eldest son broke his in August. It was on my 'signing-on' day. Now- you can't simply ring your job centre- that's too easy. You have a national number and get put on hold and then no-one answeres your call anyway. So trying to ring from a hospital on a mobile phone is near enough impossible. Bah.
4. Going back to my ''part-time work''. Because I told them that I was trying to set up my own business 'Liza's easel'' and that I had set up a stall at a number of craft fairs, they stopped paying me for 6 weeks without telling me. I continued to sign on- believing the money was getting paid and they continued to pay me bugger-all. First I knew was whne I got a letter from my bank saying they'd had to charge me for going over my limit and if I didn't get back within my limit they'd continue to charge me.
5. The guy I sign on with talks to me like I'm an idiot. I'm not an idiot. I'm not a sponger. I spent 5 years at university to get my degree and 3 further years studying on-line to get my diploma- but I'm not proud. I'll do anything to get a job and so I've been applying to shops as a sales assistant. It's min wage and I'm over-qualifed and I still can't get a job. What gives them the right to treat me like a second class citizen when I didn't ask to be in this situation???
Ok- rant over. :D
Mac, look on the bright side. Now VAT has been raised to 20%, it's so much easier to calculate :-)
http://writing-community.writersworkshop.co.uk/magazine/read/the-taxman-cometh_1638.html
As for the gov I had to call them a few days ago and I got unbelievably fed up with the longest 'push this button for this...' menu ever as well.
So glad I'm not alone in this!
It's crap. Inexcusable, must-be-a-simpler-way, blood boiling crap.
And it turns you to drink...on a Monday night!!
Which is quite a clever way to generate some revenue for HM Customs and Excise really.
So enjoy your whisky, brandy, gin - whatever.
And as you mentally flick V signs at The System, console yourself that at least you're not drinking petrol, that would really play into their hands.
8-)
They never wrote back.
Wrathy: Wouldn't an even better reason for failing to fill out tax returns have been: death?
I'm not a dishonest person but it pays to tell them as little as possible. Never, never offer information to them simply answer the questions they ask you or plead ignorance.
Mac - I had a similar problem with the PAYE department a little while ago. I had mistakenly paid a quarterly NI/PAYE payment into the account meant for income tax (bloody online banking system) and I kept getting charming letters telling me they were going to come round to my house and take everything I've got if I didn't pay the outstanding amount. After several phone calls and letters I finally got through to a delightful lady who spotted the problem straight away and put it right!
Wrathers - I think you've got it right, who wants to be a citizen anyway. If you're a voter and an all round jolly good chap, you just get penalised even more and what good is it being a voter anyway as the bloody government don't take any notice of what the public want anyway, they just ride roughshod over all the MP's who want to vote against them. Sorry, I've gone off at a tangent............
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15458400
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