In my limited experience there are few things in modern life as mind-numbingly, brain-meltingly befuddling as applying for a tax rebate from the British Government. I read stories about people going to work packing an AK-47 and blowing the place to hell, and I wouldn't be surprised if at least half of these had stayed up the previous night attempting to reclaim their misappropriated hard earned.
In theory, the process is simple. As you earn income throughout the year a proportion of it is automatically deducted from your wage through income tax. In this country most people pay around 22%. Occasionally, though, they get it wrong. Maybe you didn't work the full year. Maybe you were provided with the wrong tax code. Maybe you were charged emergency tax when you started a new job, and were taxed over the odds for the first month or two. For whatever reason, you are owed a little money back.
Again, in theory, your rebate should be simple. All you have to do is fill out a form detailing your income and the amount of tax you paid for the previous financial year, and the tax office will cut you a cheque for the amount you're due. Of course, it rarely goes as smoothly as that.
I've been out of work now for almost two months, and due to the nature of my previous job I was overtaxed pretty heavily. On top of my regular weekly paycheck I was paid a monthly bonus. The regular paycheck was taxed, I think, correctly, but Her Majesty's Revenue didn't seem to know what to do with these monthly bonuses. Sometimes they were as little as £100, sometimes as high as £600. The tax office, in their wisdom, decided to tax the hell out of it and ask questions later. As a result I figure I'm owed something between £300 and £600.
This is where the fun begins. There are maybe 5 different forms available to request a tax rebate, each with their own rules and regulations. Some you shouldn't submit if you are in work. Some you shouldn't submit if you are claiming benefits, and some you shouldn't submit if you have a shoe size greater than 10 and you're moon is in Aquarius. I randomly chose form R40 as it seems the simplest. I have no idea if the result will be a nice tax rebate or an angry letter letting me know how dense I am.
The problem is that the Inland Revenue really seem to be trying to help me. They really do. In previous years I had to drive to my local tax office and plead with the surly staff for help. Several months later I got a nice large rebate. Today, though, the Revenue have embraced the Internet. The government has a website specifically created to slice through all of the red tape and help me, the taxpayer, have a better, more fulfilling life. Unfortunately, though, the task seems to have fallen to a nursery class and a group of blind refugees.
I can download every government form under the sun, but there is no clue as to where I should return my completed form. I am given instructions as to what types of income I must declare - whether my capital gains income is taxable; exactly how much of my stock dividends from UK companies and foreign income dividends can be considered tax free - but no instruction as to whom I should return my form at the end. Am I being simple, or would my life be a lot simpler if I was told where to send the frickin' form?
I can only assume, since there is no address suggested, that I should return my completed form to my local tax office. Fortunately I know where that is, but God help those who are less knowledgable than I. There is a search function on the site to help you locate your nearest office, but it seems the designers were afraid of terrorist attacks as it doesn't provide addresses. Instead, you type in your home town or postcode, and a map flashes up with a red circle around the general vicinity of your local office. My local office, though, is on an easily missed back street sandwiched between a dual carriageway and an abandoned nightclub. It isn't visible from the street, and it isn't marked as a government office. In fact, the first hint that you are getting warm is a notice by the elevator in tiny, handwritten scrawl: tax office, 6th floor. In short, unless you know exactly where you're going you have no chance of finding it. It's possible, of course, that these vague directions are intended as some sort of protective mechanism to keep stupid people away. It could be that if a really dense person were to come into contact with the kind of person who works for the Inland Revenue they may join together into a singularity of stupid. Y'know, a sort of black hole of ignorance that sucks in everything in the vicinity. Just a theory.
Finally, I don't have the required documentation to complete my claim. While it would seem that the government would have records of my income on their computers (after all, they felt confident enough to tax me on it), they require me to submit my P45 and P60 forms in order to prove my income. Unfortunately I don't have either of these forms. Theoretically the Inland Revenue should issure them to you when you leave a job. I've had around 15 jobs in the past 5 years, and I can say with some confidence that I have been issued with a P45 only twice. As a result I have no way of proving my income apart from my payslips (and these don't mention my monthly bonuses, the very income I suspect I am owed a rebate on).
However, I have a simple solution. I will simply fill out this R40 to the best of my abilities, filling the blanks with the first numbers that come to mind, and keep my fingers crossed that at least one person working for this train wreck of a government has the good sense and dedication to process my claim correctly. Even better would be if my claim fell to an idiot who decided I am owed £10,000. Either one would be nice.
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