Category: diary

Saw Fran last night, and we had a lovely evening, gassing away for hours. It’s lovely to have her back, and it’s just such an easy friendship to revive. I’ve yet to see Fabian, so the reality as Fran-as-a-mother hasn’t struck yet.

We’ve had snow in London for the third time this year today!! It was only a flurry, and wouldn’t be worthy of a mention anywhere north of the M25, but it was a major event here!

Last Thursday when we had enough snow to bring tube and trains grinding to a halt – aided and abetted by the “tube accident at Chancery lane” which has put the Central line (in it’s entirety!!!) and the Waterloo & City line out of action since last Sunday. For some bizarre reason it seemed to make sense to me to go along with Tom’s suggestion that Phil and I should go up to visit them in Crouch End, with the promise of being ferried back to CJ so that I would be able to dress appropriately for the IT Xmas party on Friday night. I should have known better!

Having made it to Finsbury Park to find the queue for the W3 stretching far into the distance (Phil counted 95 would-be bus passengers) and rendezvousing with Tom and Tony, we wound up walking/skating along the icy pavements and roads of Crouch End for half an hour, after our lift home almost slid into the parked cards lining the residential back route we were taking to avoid the standing traffic (including the W3), and we figured that lightening the Ageh’s load by 3 would make their journey home a lot safer!

It really reminded me of winters in Solihull, when Tom and I would get very excited every time the Midlands was hit by a Big Freeze, crunching over refrozen slush and scrunching through centimetres of snow. Tom’s uploaded photos of B&R enjoying themselves in a very similar fashion on Friday.

And dining on curry in front of a real fire made it all worth while! Plus the early morning light on the snow covered scenes from Ally Pally was beautiful. Very peaceful indeed – everything bathed in this beautiful early morning sun glow, and with that silence that snow brings.

Both barrells.

but I wish I’d asked them what prompted the “courtesy calls” in the first place -having ranted to dad and to Robert, I’m sure that that in itself indicates that they know that the problem is their end.

Anyway… read on dear reader….

Inland Revenue
Citygate House
Finsbury Square
London

DELIVERED BY HAND 31 January 2003

30 January 2002

Dear Sir

Inland Revenue Tax Return y/e 05 April 2002

I have just spoken to Mrs Deening on your 0845 30003950 number returning a missed call I received from that number on 29 and 30 January 2003.

She informed me that the Inland Revenue has no record of my tax return being made.

I enclose a print out of the PDF of my tax return.

I completed and submitted my tax return using the Inland Revenue’s online facility on 12 August 2002. At the end of this letter you will find a screen shot showing the date the PDF was last modified as being 12 August 2002, indicating that I must have downloaded the PDF and hence submitted my tax return via your online filing facility on or before that date.

Consequently, I do not expect any penalties to be imposed for late delivery. I do expect my tax to be calculated for me.

I am appalled that the first attempt the Inland Revenue made to notify me of its problem was 29 January – 2 days before the 31 January deadline.

I am appalled that Mrs Deening was only able to tell me what the missed calls related to after I’d been able to provide either my UTR or NI number – bearing in mind I had no idea what the Inland Revenue might be calling me about.

Given the date of the IR’s attempts to call me and the deadline date, I am appalled that all Mrs Deening was able to recommend was that I take my Return by hand to one of the IR offices, and that emailing the PDF was not an option.

I was appalled that all Mrs Deening had turn to to find out a tax office where I might hand deliver the Return was a list of IR locations in London, with no means of identifying locations by way of postcode or other indicator which both she and I would understand.

A few questions which I am asking myself as a result of this experience and which I believe the Inland Revenue needs to think about:
* What if I had not returned the missed calls?
* What if I had not opted to keep a PDF copy of my return or no longer had access to it?
* What if I had been out of the country?

But most importantly, how it possible for the Inland Revenue to run an online filing service which does not work, and yet to promote it so heavily, by direct mail and by advertising? As fas as I am concerned, I submitted my Return, online, on 12 August 2002. The home page of the Inland Revenue website proclaims that:

‘Internet Service for Self Assessment: Sending your tax return over the internet offers you automatic calculation of tax and faster repayments. It’s quick, convenient, and secure.’

As far as I am concerned use of this service has resulted in my personal and financial data disappearing into the ether and going goodness only knows where. And it has taken the Inland Revenue 4 and a half months to notice this.

The second screenshot at the end of this letter is of my website diary entry for 12 August 2002. You can guarantee next year I will be, with regret, using the tried and tested form filling and posting approach, leaving Inland Revenue staff to perform the mindless data rekeying, hopefully without error.

Yours faithfully

Mary Loosemore

CC:

Mrs Aubrey
Cardiff 3
Ty Glas
Llanishen
Cardiff CF4 5FX

Board of Inland Revenue
Head Office
New Wing
Somerset House
Strand
London WC2R 1LB

Mrs Deening finally alighted upon “Citygate House, Finsbury Square” on her list of London Tax Offices. I wouldn’t let her off the hook until she’d found one
which was local – she didn’t even mention the IR HQ at Bush House/The Strand.

I ended up feeling rather sorry for her – she didn’t even know that Enfield wasn’t in/close to the City/Liverpool St/Bank.

How *do* you describe a London location to someone who’s never left Scotland?

The power of the postcode was never more needed.

I’m faxing my MP now.