The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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11:58am on Friday, 29th October, 2021:
Anecdote
It only took me three hours to complete my annual tax return this year.
The actual process of submitting the tax return is easy, because the government web site does all the calculations for you. The hard part is associating particular payment receipts with particular remittances and then deciding which part of the tax form they need to go in. It turned out that this year, my book royalties didn't need to go anywhere in the form, but I didn't know that until I'd spent ages poring over my bank statements trying to associate royalty statements with the appearance of money in my account. It was also surprisingly difficult to discover how much I pay in professional membership fees to the assorted societies I belong to, as they're all rather coy about it.
For the second year in a row, income I received from the University of Uppsala means I owe HM Revenue and Customs more than they can recover by adjusting my tax code. I shall have to send them some actual money. Fortunately, I knew this was going to happen so had not spent it. I don't mind paying my fair share of tax, but I prefer to have it taken away behind my back rather than in my face.
Weirdly, HMRC seems to think I am employed not only by Essex University but also by Brunel University. This is because for a time I was an external examiner there. I have been unable to remove this employment from the records, so I just leave the field blank every year. Last tax year was the final occasion that I was on the payroll at Falmouth University as an external examiner, so there's a chance I'll be an employee of them forever more, too.
All this was made possible by Sainsbury's, for delivering our weekly shop at 9am (from a 9-12 window). This meant there was no requirement to use the dining room table for shopping-unloading mid-morning, so I could spread my various pieces of documentation all over it without fear that it would either be moved or end up stuck to the bottom of a Sainsbury's delivery crate.
Phew. I can now stop fretting about it for another year (well, another 3 days, as HMRC has yet to check my submission and I think they may disagree over how much I received in income from shares).
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Copyright © 2021 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).