The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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9:16am on Tuesday, 15th October, 2024:
Anecdote
It's that time of year when I have to bite the bullet and set exam papers for exams that will be sat in June. I don't actually have to do it until early January, but this way I don't spend the Christmas break writing the things.
I have six exams to set. So far, I've done two. The resit ones are the most annoying, because there might be only one student who takes them and they take longer for me to set than they take for the student to sit. I can't re-use previous papers because it's possible that a student resits more than once. It wouldn't be so bad if I only had to write the questions, but I have to write the answers too. It takes me a day to do one paper.
Another thing that happens around this time of year that I dread is that I have to fill in my annual tax forms. Most people in the UK don't have to do this, but I do because I had to when I was a company director and HMRC have insisted that I filled in self-assessment forms thereafter. Sometimes, they get quite a chunk of tax out of me for this, if I've been in receipt of a big, one-off payment for something. Mostly, they get a few quid for the tax due on those royalties for my books that haven't already been taxed. The amounts are so low that they don't cover the cost of the time of the official who has to read the tax return and accept it.
I filled in my tax form on Saturday. It took three hours, mainly from trying to marry up forms telling me how much I've received in some foreigh currency against the CHAPS payment forms that my bank occasionally deigns to send me and the amoun that finally shows up in my bank statements. Oh, it also took time to fill in the tax form itself, mainly because Brunel University seems to want to employ me every month, following my being piad £300 for examining a PhD thesis. HMRC thinks I have 11 concurrent jobs, 10 of which are at Brunel, and all of which I had to address.
When I finished and submitted it, I thought "That's that out of the way for another year" — but I was wrong! Today, I received a message from HMRC saying that as of the current tax year, they are stopping the requirement that I fill in a self-assessment tax form every year. This makes me very happy.
If only Essex University sent me one saying they didn't need any more exam papers from me.
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Copyright © 2024 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).