OI! Man in the Bowler Hat! Pay Up

I’ve never liked the tax system. Each year I complete an enormous over the top document detailing every small part of my business, my pension contributions, my charity donations and so on and so on. Every year the same thing happens. I find that I have overpaid in tax.

This year I duly waited for my refund, a not inconsiderable sum of £349, and I have been waiting since April. So.. as a last resort I decided to phone the Inland Revenue and sort everything out and it turns out my tax refund is the princely sum of… wait for it….

£14

Quite the margin of error they have don’t they?

So duly your good thorough Guttersnipe launches an investigation and for once my sums do add up. So I call back..

“Good morning, Guttersnipe here, I was wondering if you have anything further on my refund”

“Yes.. it appears there is an amount outstanding to your National Insurance for the last 3 years and the money has been transferred to settle that”

“That’s most efficient of you, however I have not been self-employed in the last 3 years and therefore you should not have done that”

“Well we have no record of you ceasing trading in those years”

“Well could you put me through to the National Insurance People then?”

“I’ll give you their number”

Now I hate this…. They all work for the same people but no… rather than put me through I have yet another number to dial, yet another auto answering service to go through and another monkey brained moron to deal with.

So I finally get through and they call my details up and I enquire ….

“My good man I ceased trading in 2002 and you have kept apparently racking up the bills”

“We have no record of that Mr. Guttersnipe”

“OK…. I appreciate you have a record of an outstanding amount, could I ask why you haven’t informed me until now?”

“We have sent you several letters and reminders Mr. Guttersnipe”

“Really… where to?”

“[Address deleted for confidentiality reasons and in case that psycho ex learns who I am]”

“I moved from there 3 years ago, the same time I ceased trading and all this information was on the tax return I filed with you at the time”

“That was filed with the Inland Revenue Mr. Guttersnipe, they are not allowed to share that confidential information with outside parties”

But they can apparently share £335 of my money. Bastards!