Another day goes by
Yesterday I spent a good deal of my waking hours ruminating upon the passage of time and the way the world was going – as one tends to occasionally when one has reached the advanced age that I have and life increasingly seems to be hurtling onwards in an increasingly frenzied and bewildering fashion.
Part of the impetus for my reflection came from a media report that rather hit home when recently I’ve been concerned about little more that life’s little travails and issues, and how one’s kids are going to live their lives in the future. It was about some new research that reported in passing that climate control was effectively already out of our control and beyond the point of no return – see here for the story as it appeared, courtesy of Peter Walker, writing in – THE INDEPENDENT
Earlier I had driven out into leafy Surrey to visit my accountant who, over the past twenty years, has gradually moved further and further away from the outskirts of west London where I first came across him.
As per our usual annual ritual, about a month ago I had received a reminder from him that I hadn’t yet responded to his list of bank interest and other income details (sent in June) that I needed to supply in order for him to post my annual tax return with HMRC.
For some like me, who no longer works and lives on a meagre pension and the few savings I retain, the process of finding the necessary paperwork – or more likely, not finding it and then having to apply to my bank for it – is exceedingly tedious and indeed way down my list of daily priorities. Which is why it takes me so long to get around to it.
Inevitably, nothing is straightforward. This year I walked into my bank and asked for a copy of the statement of interest on my account for the financial year 2105 to 2106. You’d think they’d be able to supply that by pressing a button and producing it from a nearby printer [as indeed my building society about 100 yards further down the high street had done the same day], but you’d be wrong. They have to send it by post (“It should arrive within four to five working days”).
Earlier this week, fully a fortnight after that exchange, I returned to the bank to thump the desk and complain that the promised piece of paper had yet arrived. After ten minutes of flaffing about, and being directed to another queue to a different desk, I was (surprise, surprise!) able to leave the building with a copy of said item in my hand.
Trudging home, I happened to glance at it. It contained a note that they had pleasure in advising me of the interest paid on my account during the tax year ended 5th April 2016 (certificate issued for the purpose of section 975 of the Income Tax Act 2007). It then read:
‘Gross interest £0.55; Income Tax deducted of £0.12; Actual amount received £0.43.’
This sort of thing does make you shake your head in wonder. Every year the authorities require you to jump through all sorts of hoops in order to present your income tax return in exactly the form they want it and yet so often the whole process is a laughable waste of time, money and effort. I’d be just as happy sending them a cheque for a fiver and be done with it.
Anyway. By earlier this week I had collected all that was required and hence my journey into Surrey yesterday to present my tax stuff to my accountant.
These days our meetings are more an opportunity to reminisce and catch up on each other’s news than income tax minutae.
Even more than in 2015 our main topic was old age and the passage of time. I told of my little operation in the summer and various other aches and pains. My accountant replied with some of his own and then we agreed that the age of our kids is a sad reminder of our own – his are now in their mid-twenties, mine in their thirties – and those facts alone are disconcerting because of course we all feel permanently 25 inside until, that is, we get reminded different.
His was on a recent holiday with his wife in the Mediterranean. They had been in a restaurant looking out over a bay one evening when he had looked around and noticed that everyone around them was silver-haired and aged fifty or beyond. He’d been momentarily surprised by this until he realised that he and his spouse fitted in perfectly.
The other irritation was photographs. Whenever he was asked to appear in one, it seemed that at the last moment some small, fat, balding bloke would run ‘into shot’ and sit right in front of him … and then disappear just as suddenly, giving everyone the impression (via the image in the photograph) that it was him!
These days I don’t even know why I have an accountant, well apart from the pleasure I gain from seeing him for our fun-filled annual chat. My brother, and most other people I know, do their income tax returns online (claiming this is easy) whilst I pay several hundred quid every year for the safety and comfort of knowing my accountant is acting on my behalf and always getting it right.
You see, the thing is that maths and figures are not my forte. Mind you, nor is the internet.
That’s another whole story. When I got back home from seeing my accountant yesterday, I tried to ‘register’ on the Government website to begin claiming my old age pension and made a complete horlicks of it.
Last time I went on, I had to register for ‘Government Gateway’ or whatever it’s called and then wait for the second part of my ‘activation code’ by post. It had arrived yesterday in the post and so I thought I’d sign up.
First the system asked for my ‘username’, my password and first half of my activation code. The only one of those I could remember was my password. Then, jabbing around on the website, I somehow got ‘timed out’ because apparently at some point I’d asked to re-set my username and password (this without knowing that I had done this).
In a letter I’d previously received there was a phone number via which you could claim your pension direct without using the internet. I rang it and half an hour later I thought I’d managed it. As I told the operator I eventually spoke to, that’s the trouble with the internet, and with automated phone systems – it’s ridiculous that the Government is encouraging, even requiring, oldies like me to do things online when they know we haven’t a clue what we’re doing and are bound to cock it up.
