post this week – tax return deadline yesterday and all that. Filed the last income tax return and last corporation tax computation after 21.00 yesterday. Oh there will be plenty out there who filed later than this – 23.59 is the deadline and there will have been firms filing right up to then, and beyond. But for a “one man band” and after a week’s worth of 12 hour days it’s plenty late enough and adds NOTHING to one’s work-life balance (what’s one of those I hear you cry?). Still have three returns in limbo. One a late notification so awaiting the UTR (Unique Tax Reference for readers outside the UK annual filing regime, a way of pinning people and businesses down by the tax authorities) and two where the clients tell me they’ve been submitted but I can’t see that they have been. Undoubtedly we’ll find out who is right at some future point…

Regarding “late” clients – a blog post from another accountant summed it up.

In paraphrase – I used to rewrite a list of the missing returns each year. Then I just kept the year’s before. So much quicker… But I’m now in that twilight zone where my body tells me to take the day off – back is mega-sore from all the hunching over the screen and looking from paper records to screen and back again – but the brain cell reminds me that the 57 item to do list has reduced by 18 but grown by 9. And that several of the items need to be done in the coming week. Period. MORE deadlines.

So I’m doing the procrastinating thing and doing something that’s not even on the list!

Had a small accident with the cup-a-soup earlier. Managed to throw 3/4 of the cup over the work surface having miscalculated the depth of the kettle (changed it last week coz the old one broke) and the height of the cup when putting said kettle back. But managed to retrieve most of it – in my defence I AM tight with money and it IS one of my favourite flavours (sodding spellchecker – just because there are two types of English: US and real). Need the emoji! Everything you read regarding failure(s) tells you that there are no such things, just opportunities to learn. But I’m not quite sure what I can learn about kettles and cup-a-soup. Musing face emoji.

Actually failure to learn does go well with tax returns.

Although the old adage that madness is doing the same thing over and again (annually in this case) and expecting a different outcome also applies in buckets. The medium term plan is to get someone else to do them. Member of staff or outsourcing? Don’t know, I have no preference. Over the same timescale HMRC’s intention to pre-populate (spellchecker again – why would pee-populate make more sense than what I have put?) interest, dividends, etc. will speed things along remarkably. As would getting someone else to do mine. TEN HOURS to do accounts and return!

Some lessons to take from that?

We passed the bookkeeping over to Jane who does a wonderful job. We DIDN’T stop doing the payroll but we DID stop posting it in Xero. And because I’ve “fixed” the year end to maximise the delay between earning it and paying tax on it (all totally legal and above board) it’s 18 months later before I spot it. Don’t assume… Okay. I’ve made my neck sore enough. Time for a walk. [caption id="attachment_4200" align="aligncenter" width="300"] February walk – time to clear the head[/caption]]]>