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The Provincial Tax Practitioner tells a seasonal story with a tax theme.

Christmas Present

It’s that time of year again in the Provincial Tax Practitioner’s office and the festive spirit has been turned away at the door, sent packing with a frozen flea in its ear. 

Clients’ books and records are piling in, despite constant reminders throughout the year to bring them in earlier; Post It notes are obliterating my computer screen; everybody expects an office party; Xmas bonuses and holidays need to be sorted; another VAT rate change is in the offing; a particularly annoying  acronym (iXBRL) hangs over us like the Sword of Damocles; the January deadline looms large on the horizon; the firm’s accounts must be finalised soon; a family Christmas needs arranging and gifts must be bought and cards sent to family in this country and the far flung corners of the Earth. 

And all this beneath the dark, glowering skies of a British winter. 

There must be more to life than this.

Sheer bloody humbug.

The Ghost of Christmas Past 

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again.

I wish.

The nocturnal reflections of my subconscious, sleep-saturated brain were far less enjoyable than those of Daphne du Maurier. 

I think it was that glass of port and chunk of stilton that did it. Dragged away screaming in the middle of the night by a ghostly guide, I found myself in a small, dusty office piled high with ledgers and files.

Three Wise Men

At a long desk sat three clerks in cheap and shabby flannel suits, crouched over thick leather-bound ledgers, piles of crumpled invoices, bank statements and cheque book stubs. A flickering fluorescent tube strobe-lit a brown threadbare carpet and an old Victorian table covered with cardboard boxes and carrier bags full of clients’ books and records. One of the table’s four supports was deficient in the leg department to the tune of 4 inches and was propped up on a copy of Spicer and Pegler’s Bookkeeping and Accounts. A two-bar electric fire glowed in the centre of the room, laughing in the face of any faint semblance of health and safety. Another young clerk sat at a black-enamelled contraption that resembled a small church organ.

‘Dear God, that’s some sort of early adding machine or comptometer.’

The young lad hammered at the keys and the whole thing whirred and clattered like a rudimentary threshing machine. Its operator swore beneath his breath at the frequently jamming keys.

In Need of Tidings, Comfort and Joy

The spectre at my shoulder directed me to move closer to the clerks hunched over their working papers. 

I stared at the spidery entries on the analysis paper: in pounds, shillings, pennies, halfpennies and farthings.

‘If that bank analysis doesn’t balance, it’ll take him an eternity to find the difference,’ I whispered.

One particularly perplexed clerk flicked back and forth through a ledger, checking the balances struck and underlined so neatly in red ink.

Another chap was frantically rubbing out both pencil and ink figures on a sheet of paper that appeared to be almost transparent from previous erasings. Flecks of white rubber and paper littered the desk like the fallout from a world championship dandruff competition, and columns of figures were being added up and cross-cast without the aid of a calculator, the page totals carried forward meticulously to each of the next twenty or so sheets.

Bring Me Flesh, and Bring Me Wine

The Ghost of Christmas Past led me to another room where an ancient chap sat at a leather-topped desk. On it lay brown wage packages, the contents itemised in detail on the front: three pounds six shillings, three pounds and sixpence, four florins and seven pence and one with the princely sum of four guineas.

‘I knew it was grim, but surely not this grim?’

The spectre pointed his bony hand at a large dead goose and a rabbit hanging from a hat stand, and a dozen eggs on a cupboard, and bottles of ale, sherry and port: gifts in lieu of fees from grateful clients.

Please Put a Penny in the Old Man’s Hat

A draft fee note lay on a file; 20 guineas.

'I know all this is grindingly dour,’ I whispered, ‘but there were still some advantages; no Capital Gains Tax, Corporation Tax, Inheritance Tax, Value Added Tax, no UK Accounting Standards, and  as much chance of a back duty case (HMRC enquiries) as Wayne Rooney winning a Brad Pitt look-alike contest.’

The Spirit turned and his bottom jaw gaped open to his chest.

‘BORING, BO..R..IN…G!!’ it bellowed.

'I know it’s nothing but glorified bookkeeping but there must have been some exciting tax planning opportunities to lighten the gloom,’ I stammered.

A skeletal hand emerged from a voluminous, black sackcloth sleeve and pointed at the journal paper on the desk. Copper plate handwriting in black India ink glowed on the pages.

Dr Purchases £5,000, Cr General Creditors reserve £5,000.
Dr General Provision for bad debts £2,000, Cr Debtors £2,000.

I shook my head in disbelief. 

‘They’d throw away the key today.’

The old grandfather clock in the corner of the office struck.

I woke with a start.

‘Dear God, what a nightmare.’

I could sense my heart thumping in my chest.

A distant church clock chimed.

At the end of the bed stood another shadowy figure, gnarled finger beckoning me.

‘It’s ok,’ I gasped, ‘I believe you. We’ve never had it so good. No more please.’

The Ghost of Christmas Future

If You Haven’t Got a Penny, a Ha’penny Will Do

The room dissolved and reconstituted itself, much smaller, and containing a huge computer screen suspended from the ceiling. Not a book, file, cabinet or keyboard in sight.

The screen flickered to life, and a nervous, twitchy face emerged.

‘I need something sorting,’ snapped the face. ‘Whatever you save I’ll give you 10%. You lose, you get nothing.’

The occupant of the office gazed at the screen with eyes as lifeless as the chair upon which he sat, and which appeared to be made of bone.

‘My standard fee is 20%’, he replied to the screen.

‘10% I said. Take it or leave it. There’s plenty that’ll do the job for that.’

‘How much has HMRC Retrieval Unit demanded?’

‘£25 grand, and I ain’t made anything like that’

‘Did you file your monthly income returns?’ enquired the agent.

‘Don’t need to; I’m a web retailer and all transactions are automatically filed through Google Tax.’

‘What about your annual Capital Statement Form?’

‘Filed on time. That 2 grand penalty focuses the mind, I tell you.’

‘Perhaps you made a mistake,’ replied the agent.

‘Don’t make me laugh: it’s only three boxes to fill in, and I know the capital items are correct and the income is as per the monthly returns.’

If You Haven’t Got a Ha’penny, God Bless You

The tax advocate sighed.

‘They don’t believe your personal expenditure figure then?’

‘Too right. They’ve run a personal profile and come up with a shortfall.’

The tax agent groaned inwardly.

How he longed for those far off days of accounts and tax returns that his father had told him about.

‘Ok, I’ll take it on.’

He pressed an icon on the screen.

‘Key in your biometric identification on that authority and let me have it back as soon as you can.’

‘I’ll do that, and then give you access rights to interrogate my system. Cheers, mate.’

When a Poor Man Came in Sight

The image faded and the agent touched another icon.

He gazed at an update of his current cases. Three successful outcomes, with total fees of £15,000, one failure and no fee, and one referred to the Grand Inquisitor Tribunal System (GITS to acronym lovers).

And 6 months of his financial year had already passed.

Another finger stab brought up his total indebtedness figure on screen, and he held his head in his hands.

Let Nothing You Dismay

His father had enjoyed the good times, but the slow, creeping onset of dementia had now reduced him to sitting pensively in front of a blank computer screen, counting on his fingers and reading a battered and torn thirty-year-old copy of Hardmans from cover to cover: each and every day. 

The practice inherited from his father by our tax advocate had been all but destroyed by the collapse of the Euro, the European Union, the resultant 5-year economic depression and the total decimation of small businesses by the Worldwide Web.

The dispirited agent left the room and the lights dimmed.

Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly

The spectre glided forward, stroked the screen and images of the advocate’s father appeared; laughing and joking with staff and clients in the office and having fun at the annual Christmas Party. The girls had hired a silly outfit for him to wear, as they did every year. He plunged headlong into the spirit of each and every Christmas and this particular year he wore his Japanese emperor’s uniform with great panache, as both he and the staff hooted with laughter.

My spirit guide pointed at the screen and let loose an ear-splitting howl of laughter, which continued to reverberate in my head long after the scene faded.

The next day I breezed into the office, worked out generous bonuses, dealt with all the notes stuck to my computer screen, booked the best restaurant in town for the Christmas Party and laughed in the face of the January deadline. Any client who delivers books and records to the office in December, expecting his or her self assessment return to be filed on time will be politely informed – but with the utmost good humour - that he or she may be disappointed.

Oh, and I booked a Norman Wisdom outfit; purely for medicinal purposes you understand.

In future let it always be said that I know how to keep Christmas well; if any provincial practitioner alive possesses the knowledge.

And so God bless us every one!

Sincerest Season’s greetings to you all.