Taxing lyrical

We are unexpectedly busy on the taxi rank, and I am having to squeeze this in between customers.

We seem to have had a very full sort of day, and it culminated in a frantic rush for all three of us to get out to work, Oliver to look menacing on the door of the Ship Inn, and me and Mark to look world-weary in taxis.

Mark and Oliver have been mending cars. They have fitted the tow bar to Mark’s taxi. He bought the tow bar ages and ages ago, but had not got around to gluing it to the bumper until today. He has got to have it there now, because he has got to take the trailer to Darlington to collect the new axle for the poor camper van. We are hoping he will manage to do that tomorrow.

Oliver has been welding up the holes in his car. There are quite a few of these, and Oliver is a novice welder, with the result that all of his clothes are now beginning to look like Mark’s, with burn holes and oily smears everywhere. Fortunately he has not got much longer at school and so he does not have to appear middle class for more than the next few weeks.

I have occupied a very great deal of the day in paperwork. I did not at all want to be doing this, because the sun was shining, but it was one of those tasks which could not be avoided.

We have developed an irritating difficulty which has needed my attention. His Most Gracious Majesty’s Office For Revenue And Customs has taken advantage of Mark’s recent PAYE status to raise enough money to fight the war in Ukraine. We checked into their online Web Page Of Doom this morning to make the most startling discovery that they have estimated Mark’s income for the next year as most likely to be £193,000.

This is, I need not tell you a very, very lot of money, and I wish I had their optimism.

They are, however, convinced. They have taken tax out of his recent wage packets with that figure in mind, and even more than that, because they decided, in their thoughtful wisdom, that this arcane and astronomical salary meant he had probably not paid enough tax during the month of April, and so they have added that on to the top.

I do not know how they did not notice that they were removing almost his entire wage packet in putative tax, but if they did notice, they failed to think it was of any importance, and Mark, after three weeks offshore, came home with rather less than I earned driving a taxi.

We have been puzzling over this for some time, but it was not until this morning’s inspired investigation that we finally understood, and were horrified to learn into the bargain, that the Inland Revenue also wished us to pay them a further £73,000 over the next few months.

Given that this is considerably more than we will earn, even between us, I think they will have to abandon that idea.

It appears that somebody has put a decimal point in the wrong place somewhere, not me, fortunately, but some hapless chap in the oil industry’s payroll department, and I spent the day sending frantic emails to everybody I could think of who might remedy the situation.

I did not email the Inland Revenue. They do not accept emails. Instead they give you a form to fill in. When I tried to fill it in they explained that they did not accept forms until at least four weeks after their supposed miscalculation, and so I have got another couple of weeks to wait before I am allowed to tell them.

After that, they explained, by way of a casual courtesy, that if in the most unlikely event that they have made a miscalculation, usually they will expect to repay it between twelve to fifteen weeks later.

I expect they are waiting until after the election.

Fortunately we are now set up as a Limited Company, so they can get lost for any more, and I suppose we will get this lot back handily in time for Christmas, so all is not lost.

All the same, it was a jolly waste of a sunny day.

It would almost have been more fun to be welding.

By the way, I have bought the new hat in the end. A look at mine this morning revealed it to be as faded and grey as ever, and actually the moth holes might have been noticeable, by my mother if not the King.

It is a lovely hat.

I am going to look just like the dear old Queen.