We thank you for your recent visit to our offices as part of the enquiry into our clients’ affairs. In this regard we have some concerns as well as suggestions as follows:
While we appreciate your corporate policy not to ‘suck in all the marrows’ of those who can’t afford it, your insistence that one of our clients sell his dog shed to pay off the £5.20 self-assessment tax owed appears have been objected to by the inhabitants. Being German Shepherds, they are not up to speed with the UK tax laws, particularly the enforcement part, and they have their own way of enforcing it anyway.
In relation to the outstanding PAYE tax at source debt owed by our milkman client he, given the acute cash flow struggle, wondered if you would accept milk at source. The cow may be willing to visit the HMRC debt management offices early mornings as soon as an agreement in this regard has been reached.
The remarkable archaeological skills demonstrated by the officer enquiring into the staff welfare spend have been quite impressive. In particular, the officer searching the kitchen and taking away a few breakfast biscuits to ensure that indeed they were ‘wholly and exclusively’ meant for breakfast meetings simply demonstrates how real the inspection has become. In case the inspector hasn’t yet consumed them, it turned out later the biscuits were bought for the director’s pets; the dogs do not appear to have any particular problem with the loss though.
Meanwhile we note with a sense of pride that HMRC have made spectacular improvements in the customer services department. The NAO report now confirms that the average waiting time for calls made to HMRC is now just 118 minutes compared to 120 minutes last year. Their survey of taxpayers now rates the service as 'terrible' as compared to what was 'disgusting' last year. Quite an achievement there.
We would disagree if the costs incurred by us on yoga therapy for our staff were to be disallowed, as indicated by you. Over the years we have discovered that the following poses are directly relevant to our trade while dealing with HMRC:
Kapalbhati – skull cleaning breathing technique to be practised five minutes before and after a phone call to HMRC
Savasana – corpse pose that rejuvenates the mind and body to be practised immediately after engaging with the debt management team at HMRC.
We’re happy to share the full manual with HMRC which should convince you how ‘wholly and exclusively’ relevant is this particular spend for the trade.
