Accountant dutifully reminds me of that great impending day of festivity and joy – January 31st. Prepare! Bake! Bring your own fireworks! It’s Self-Assessment Day!
And here – oh joy beyond expression! – is an extra frisson to excite! His fees have risen in line with inflation! Whose inflation? My fees haven’t risen – my costs have, and not least among their number is my accountant.
OK, a circular argument, I know. But from this incendiary date springs the germination, the orange flowerof my revolutionary zeal. Everyone has to pay taxes, one of life’s two certainties, and god knows I do – as a British citizen – oh! Sorry! as a British SUBJECT – I pay more tax pro rata than almost anyone else in the world. My resentment springs from the need to employ an accountant, at substantial additional cost to myself, in order to render to Caesar. If I don’t, as a small-fry tax-payer, I will certainly come under investigation from Her Majesty’s Revenue (who survive only by their unique skills in picking on small targets) and be subjected to further accountancy costs in order to fight my case. No Legal Aid (remember Legal Aid – that was when we lived in something approaching a democracy?) no redress. I will simply be hung out to dry by The System. So, tax plus accountancy fees – to feed the Westminster leviathan with its repetitive nightmares of costly consultants and failed incompetent schemes? I would infinitely prefer to have my money rowed over in darkness from France so I could at least take my chance with those merciless Cornish cliffs.
The self -assessment website’s logo should be a drain. I love my country, but can somebody tell me who put these god-awful people in it?…..
Frederick Anderson's Story Blog 
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