Tax return day

A warm breezy day with rain clouds driven away to the south east and bright sunshine at 21C. I woke up from a good long night's sleep feeling clear headed for a change, determined to shorten my to-do list. After breakfast I wrote another biblical reflection in advance for the week we're cruising on the Douro. 

Cruise documents from Rivera Travel arrived by email yesterday. I downloaded them for printing. We both like to have paper copies of everything, even if the digital version is more immediately accessible on a working phone. The digital cruise brochure runs to thirty pages, with an alarmingly wasteful amount of empty space on each page. It seems they no longer run to the expense of posting such documents, which is disappointing considering the cost of the trip. 

My HP lazer printer is almost out of ink but works after few taps and shakes of the cartridge to release the last micro-grams of ink to get it to print evenly. I forgot to do this and twenty unreadable pages came out. After doing what I should have done beforehand, copies of vital selected pages including boarding passes were produced as intended. Then it was time to cook lentils and veg with rice for lunch while Clare went out for some exercise.

Then, after we'd eaten, I finally got around to making my tax declaration for the past year. I've been doing this on-line for the past twenty years, and am familiar with navigating my way through the process as my income streams aren't many and change little. This year there's an exception, as there's tax to pay on some of the income from the Aviva bond I cashed back in March. I had the info about it ready to use but couldn't work out where to enter it on the form. I was under the impression that it was taxed under capital gains, but couldn't find a category. Google helped with a suitable explanation that it was an insured bond. Then I  found the right place immediately. 

HMRC's on-line tax declaration has improved greatly over the years. I'm proud to know that Owain is one of a team of hundred if not thousands working behind the scenes to deliver precise and clear explanations of every conceivable aspect of taxation in many hundreds of drop down help menus on the website. It's an unending task, as tax legislation changes happen with every new government budget. Hereafter I may no longer need to fill in a tax return at all. Since retirement some locum duty fees I've received have not been taxed at source, and the information needed to be added at the end in a box provided for other information about income. There's now a box within listed streams of income listed just for this. 

Next year, it's unlikely I will have any occasional income from locum duties to declare. I'm no longer doing funerals, and offers of European long locum duty stays have ceased as the diocese has become more risk averse about making use of clergy my age. Needless to say, I'm very sad about this. The last fourteen years of occasional spells of service abroad have been a great and unforgettable pleasure. 

In future my income will be predictably static, travel limited by what we can afford. The Douro cruise is a one off pleasurable experience both of us felt we'd like to spend savings on. I've been fortunate not to need a joint replacement like some men of my age suffering from the long term impact of youthful sports injury. Clare's savings will pay for her hip replacement. A two year wait with such pain would deprive her un-necessarily of quality of life if not mobility. By then she'll be at the head of the NHS queue to have the other hip replaced, and already she's on that list.

It took me two hours to complete and submit the tax return, then I went out for a long walk until supper time. We watched a BBC Proms concert of Bach's Concerto for Orchestra in D Minor and Mendelssohn's Lobegesang Symphony. Stirring stuff! Then a breath of fresh night air before bed, feeling pleased my to-do list is a little shorter tonight.

Tax-ing day

I woke up refreshed after an eight hour sleep to another overcast day with occasional rain and dry spells. After breakfast, I spent the morning tidying my office, filing away documents and then compiling all the information needed to submit my annual tax return. Then it was time to cook and eat lunch. We shared the fig that I picked yesterday. It was ripe, but not all that sweet. 

Then, I opened my HMRC account and entered the data I collected. The process was easy enough, and I had no problems until I submitted the completed form. I had an error message about an incomplete page, but was unable access the file to check it. Almost at the same time, I received an email recording the submission of my tax account. It takes three days for HMRC to process, then I will be able to review the file and check to see if there are any errors. It's possible the error message was itself erroneous, but I'll find out next week.

I went for my daily walk in the park after finishing the job. It was almost completely deserted. Only in the last ten minutes of walking did light rain began to fall, enough to make me slightly damp. Earlier, I learned from WhatsApp that Iona has agreed to edit the weekly parish web newsletter. I sent a message of support, and received a response indicating she'd bitten off more than she can chew, having to learn how to edit Microsoft Sway, collect relevant info and publish, with family duties taking up much of her time and attention at the moment. She needs to find someone else to recruit in her place pronto. Having offered her support, I said I'd help until she recruited another.

I thought it would be a good idea to find out how Sway worked. I've consumed its output for the past couple of years without ever bothering to load the app and learn as I had no need to. I accessed my One Drive account on my Chromebook, found the Sway web app in the MS Office collection, and soon got the gist of its functioning. It's simple and fairly easy to use, but gaining familiarity with it for the sake of efficient working is what matters. 

Having received this week's Sway newsletter only yesterday, I discovered when I opened it, that I could make a copy of it to import into the web app. It was possible with care to edit this week's info with next week's, and eliminate redundant data to produce a serviceable edition for checking and circulation. That took me about an hour and a half, then sent Iona the link to what I'd done for checking.

After supper I thought I'd install the Sway app on my laptop. Having done so, I was unable to find the file to open, although it was possible to do just this through One Drive in the laptop Chrome browser. Rather odd but I thought I'd find a workaround somehow. Try as I may, I couldn't get the desktop Sway app to load the file I created. It kept telling my it couldn't access the internet, poor thing.  My laptop was accessing the internet fine in  every other respect. So, desktop Sway was summarily uninstalled. I'll be able to work with the web app version, now that I have proved it does function.

To conclude the day, another episode of I Claudius on iPlayer.

Day of Reckoning

After breakfast, I started work sorting documents and retrieving information for my tax return. That took me until lunchtime as it involved sorting through paper bank statements and my on-line bank account to look for information in the one that I couldn't identify in the other. The trouble with going cashless is that a bank statement expands from one to three pages due to the multiplicity of small entries. When checking donations on-line, it was difficult to spot the particular entries as my particular on-lone account doesn't have a search by name of recipient, or a payment history for each recipient. A whole morning to get it all straight, and then lunch to cook while Clare was out at her study group.

After lunch, I started work on my digital tax return, which then only took me an hour to complete and submit. Some of its internal procedures have been simplified a little, making it easier to complete without puzzlement. Even with my income from un-taxed fees declared, it turned out that HMRC owe me a small sum, which is better than it being the other way round. After all that concentrated effort I felt quite tired and slept in the chair for over an hour.

Then I went out of a walk taking my Song Alpha 68 DSLR with me for the first time in five months. It felt so much heavier to carry than the Olympus. My last two photos were of an egret on the Taff. One was near the shore and the other, slightly blurred, in flight. A couple of mallards noisily arriving nearby alarmed the egret and it took to the wing. I swung the camera up, pointed and shot in what I hoped was the right area. The Sony's slick shutter response did the rest. It's not great, but here it is anyway.

I walked for an hour an a half taking photos, so far autumn looks quite different from the vivid colours of last year due to the extreme heat and dryness of the summer. Dark green tree canopies have been touched with reds and yellows since the end of August. A few trees have lost most of their leaves already, trees that were golden yellow for a month last year. 

After supper we watched a Norwegian documentary in the BBC Four 'Storyville' series about systemic racism against the Norwegian Sami population, focussing on the lack of attention by public authorities of serious cases of incest and child abuse in one remote marginalised poor village. A disturbing account of victims' lives when safeguarding isn't taken seriously at all, due to cultural prejudice. Hard to watch. I think it should be required homework for church safeguarding training courses, not because there's any religion in it, but because of the witness of those who suffered across the generations,

Tax muddle

It felt really cold again today with a hard wind blowing in gusts and occasional rain showers, but not cold enough for frost or snow. After breakfast I drove to Penarth with Clare to collect Owain's saxophone from the music shop where it's been given a service and found to be in good shape. That I took her to her study group meeting, went home and cooked lunch.

Walking in such conditions was quite an effort. I needed to get out but didn't manage early enough in the day to avoid walking in the dark. 

Since I submitted my on-line tax return, I've been getting nagging reminder emails from HMRC which I couldn't make sense of, saying I should register as self-employed and remember to pay tax by the deadline on the amount I owed. I had a clear recollection of asking for outstanding tax owing to be payed the adjusting my PAYE coding, as I have done for the past fifteen years that I can recall. 

Something had to be wrong, so I went back to review the form I had submitted, and realised I'd made a mistake, by not understanding that I should declare myself as 'Employed' although I'm retired and living on pension income. This was the cause the email nags about registering for self employment.

When I'd made the correction on the declaration form some extra boxes popped up on the form allowing my to enter my income from employment pensions, the HMRC doesn't refer to them as such on the form. I wondered before why it didn't ask for this income initially, and ended up assuming that HMRC already knew what my PAYE income and tax paid amounts were. If they do, they insist on you declaring it. Tax accountancy I will never understand. Anyway, corrections made, form confirmed re-submitted. 

Hopefully the email nags will stop now. I found it quite upsetting, and getting to grips with this issue took up much of the day, a phone call to Rufus in a panic, and googling answers which still barely made sense before the penny dropped. HMRC is master of the game, inventing the language and rules whether or not anyone understands them. If you don't tough. You get into trouble. Hopefully, writing this down now will help me remember what to do next year. It's a mistake I never made before. Maybe I was just lucky, or too careless this time.

I've been told that I don't have to submit an annual return any longer, but as I have been receiving some fees that are untaxed at source, I've always felt that I should declare them and pay tax, so I continue to enter this additional amount in a box for extra information, and it does get picked up by the system. It was a relief to get things straight in the end.

After supper, I watched a couple more episodes of 'Crossing Lines' on my laptop and some how getting to bed much later than I should have.

Tax done

Having got to bed a little earlier last night, I woke refreshed at first light, and after breakfast was out in the park walking to Aldi for a couple of bottles of their Chianti, which is quite good for a low priced wine, and the to B&M to shop for portable lights. I returned with a LED lamp with a crocodile clip for fixing it to a desk, something I hope will come in useful if my eyes play tricks on me again in low light conditions. It's powered through a USB2 cable you can attach to a phone or a power pack, which makes it easy to adapt in any situation I find myself in. It's go in my grab bag, along with face mask, spare specs, alb and stole.

Then, there was the water rates bill to pay on-line before cooking lunch, a Sunday sermon to complete and print, and after lunch, my tax return to do. This I managed to complete in just a couple of hours. The entire process is simplified nowadays. I wasn't asked for information from my P60 annual income statements, as used to be the case. I suppose this PAYE data is now submitted to HMRC directly when issued. I don't get any income from non PAYE sources apart from locum fees for which I don;t have to be registered as self employed. Finding somewhere to enter this is not obvious, so it ends up doing in the 'extra information' box. It must register somewhere, as is revealed in the amount of tax I pay. Glad that chore is done now.

I cooked a squash and lentil soup for supper, in time for Clare's return home, just after seven. I watched the first of six episodes of the Steig Larsson's 2010 'Millennium Trilogy' and realised that I'd seen it before bundled into three hour and a half movies several years ago. Also I read the book on the second occasion I did locum duty in Montreux, where I found it in the church lending library, reading it to occupy my mind in the days when I was waiting to travel home, poorly with abscess infection running rampant. It's quite an interesting of convoluted story, but horribly violent on times. I wondered if I should have bothered to re-visit it.

Taxing time

Last night I watched the final double episode of the Spanish crimmie on BBC Four 'Se Quien Eres' and was most disappointed at the conclusion. The disappeared student turned out to be alive after eleven days of incarceration in an underground cellar without food and water, something I consider highly unlikely. And she was revived by some rather dubious DIY first aid, and seemed to recover so quickly she was able to escape and run for her life, instead of being hardly able to stand after her ordeal. The last episode was dramatic in its revelations, but was in effect only a curtain raiser for a second series of ten episodes yet to come. Incredible in every way, and after such a disappointing end, it's doubtful as to whether it'll be worth watching the second series. Shame, because it did actually start to raise interesting questions about the identities we construct for ourselves in relation to others.

This morning I celebrated the Eucharist at St John's and St Catherine's for congregations of around thirty in both places. We had no organist at St John's, so I led unaccompanied singing, which worked quite well. There are times when I think organ accompaniment can inhibit people from singing out. Is it that the congregation can't hear itself singing so easily, and ends up not making the effort?

For much of the rest of the day, Clare and I worked at filing out on-line tax returns. Hers is somewhat less straightforward than mine, due to a small amount of income from a legacy of foreign shares. It's quite difficult to understand what is required to complete the necessary dialogues in order to enter the required figures, so it was painfully slow for her. I managed to complete mine in a few hours, while helping her, but filing her return will have to wait until tomorrow.

Job satisfactions

I went to St German's this morning, to meet with a group from the STAR Community Centre in Splott, which was visiting various places of worship for the different religious faiths which have their meeting places in Splott and Adamsdown - Reformed Synagogue, Sikh and Hindu Temple, Mosque and Saint German's. My task was to give them a guided tour and speak about Catholic Christian worship and the story of Christian mission in the area since the 1880s. The group numbered only half a dozen. Few, if any of them were churchgoers, so I enjoyed giving them an introduction which explained how Saint German's comes to be a special place in this part of South East Cardiff.

Recently, Clare has been sorting out redundant stuff for disposal, and giving the kitchen cupboard a good clean. After lunch, we made a sortie by car to the Bessemer Close waste disposal and re-cycling centre, with some ancient pans and a defunct lawn mower, plus bags of garden waste, as we'd missed the early morning collection today. Then we went to the Shaw Trust charity shop in Cowbridge Road, to deliver some bags of clothes, a tricky job by car as there's little parking and the street is always congested with through traffic. It's a lot easier when there are two of us.

Then it was my turn to get busy. First, I had two lots of flight boarding passes to arrange for autumnal sorties to Spain. Having waited the requisite week since my airport panic visit, getting seat assigned on my outbound flight to Malaga next Tuesday was straightforward, but the booking system insisted I pay to have a seat assigned on the return flight, before it would issue me boarding passes for both. It refused to issue them for the outbound only. This was the flight I booked early in the year for going to Nerja this autumn, and then had to change flight dates to suit the month in Malaga instead. Making the changes cost me over a hundred euros. The original tickets booked had been printed off months ago, nothing extra to pay. The imposition of a seat booking charge on my return flight is to my mind sharp practise and most annoying.

After this I had some on-line banking to do. This works very well and gives a measure of confidence that it's secure to use, provided that computer security is kept completely up to date, of course. Then it was time to tackle this year's tax return. I noticed from looking at old ones that I'm four months earlier getting my affairs sufficiently in order to do the job this year. It's now eleven years since I started doing tax returns on-line. The HMRC site has much improved over the years. It's clear and informative, although it can be a little confusing if you just want to go direct to your tax return, as there is a great deal of helpful information as well as choices to wade through first. 

Clare found this a problem when she did her on-line return over the weekend. To avoid having to hunt, I searched through my records and found the URL of the personal tax log-in page, possibly an old one, but it still worked, after a delay and enabled me to get started. Thankfully it only took me a couple of hours to complete, as I was able to find all the necessary supporting documentation, following a tidy up earlier this year. Tax is horridly complex, but despite this HMRC's return pages work well. 

With this behind me, my 'To Do' list is now much shorter, and I feel pleased with the achievement.
 

On line government admin

Monday was a quiet uneventful day, spent doing CBS office work at home. I also went on-line to renew my European Health Insurance Card (aka EHIC), and while the NHS website was accessible enough, I ran into trouble straight away. Using the email address EHIC staff used to notify me that me card was on the way five years ago, I put in a lost password request, and found that my email address wasn't recognised. I tried registering from scratch, again the email wasn't recognised, and the error message thrown up stated categorically that it wasn't a valid email address format.

Just as I was starting to get really grumpy out loud, one of fortnightly home cleaners said "I had that trouble too renewing my Dad's EHIC recently, but they did it over the phone for me, automatically." Finding the number on the website was no trouble. I was put through to a robotic answering device, the kind that normally makes me even grumpier, but this was quite exceptional! The clarity of the procedures and the accuracy of the voice recognition software astonished me, and within minutes I was promised delivery of a new card within seven days. If only the website promoted this as the only sensible and efficient alternative, instead of leaving a less than functional registration page in place.

My day was otherwise notable for finally getting around to emailing golden wedding anniversary invites with 'how to get there' maps for a couple of dozen people, near and far, that we know are coming. There should be around forty of us on August 6th.

Today I had to go into the CBS office, and register a new internet banking facility to manage the BCRP Board finances, since a bank card and a new security device had arrived and needed to be registered for account use. There were charges to pay in relation to the Crime Manager's salary, tax and National Insurance. I was dreading it, but delighted as I discovered how user friendly the HMRC web payment facilities are, and the job was quickly done.

I also needed to do some leaflet design using an ancient copy of MS Publisher, which I don't have installed conveniently at home at the moment. As we're now using some additional types of radio handset equipment, user guides need re-writing to accompany them. It is far less rare that I have recourse to this kind of work nowadays, and it takes longer than usual to remember how to make use of some of the available features. As a result I left the office for my double Chi Gung / Tai Chi class later than intended and was twenty minutes late entering the session, annoyed with myself for not baling out earlier and leaving the job unfinished.

   

Different kinds of duties done

Clare came with me to All Saints' Penarth this morning for a Eucharist with a dozen people attending. The last time I was here was for a Lent talk, since I've retired. Puzzlingly, can't track down exactly when that was, although I believe it was just before work began on a major project to re-develop the west end of the church nave for community purposes, as the all new look and feel to the church came as a surprise.

There's a big extended balcony arranged as meeting areas, with offices, kitchen and toilets on the ground floor either side of the entrance. That still leaves room for a congregation of around three hundred. Church here is still well attended and relatively prosperous, with more than enough to do for a priest often having to work on his own, or else be training a Curate, and functioning as Area Dean in addition. I get the impression that he has the support he needs, and his Friday worshippers were welcoming to us.

For Clare, this was the first occasion to come to worship since her brother Eddie died, and it was special for me to share with her mentioning him by name in the Lord's presence. Naming people in the context of time-hallowed repetition of well remembered liturgical sentences is such a simple way of bonding the living and dead with each other across the frontier of eternity, mysteriously blending pain and consolation. I find it such a privilege to have been able to continue doing this over the forty six years of my public ministry. There's no magic to this, just the love that heals.

Afterwards, I took her by car across the city to the Spire clinic in Pentwyn for an ultrasound scan of her repaired shoulder, which has been giving her a lot of pain of late. The delightful young German doctor, who spoke excellent English with just the hint of a Scottish brogue to colour her voice, betraying her career history thus far, was most reassuring. The shoulder repairs were intact, the pain was inflammation, treatable with a cortizone injection that will enable Clare to return to regular re-enforcing physio exercise without too much grief.

Resorting to private medical treatment is far from desirable in our opinion, but NHS services are overburdened. There could be months of waiting, coping with the pain and continued uncertainty about how much re-hab effort she should be making. The scan provided the necessary information when most needed, to enable her to continue to make progress. That's worth the expenditure. After all, the money might have paid for that weekend outing we could have taken if it wasn't for the deterrent shoulder pain. Who wants money more than pain? Why blame state medicine when older people like us are part of the challenge it strives to deal with? Affording this little intervention, one way or another helps make things better.

Having taken Clare home after scan and treatment, I popped back into town on the bus to visit the office, and deal with the half dozen responses so far to the BCRP job advert in the 'Western Mail' and on the JobsWales website. This is a promising start, and shows us the value of a rather costly advertising process immediately. I might regret this, if by the deadline, I have dozens of applications to process for the short-listers to consider. So pleased, however, to have eventually got this far.

I couldn't put it off any longer. After supper this evening, I gathered my wits and made the vital effort to complete my 2014-15 tax return. The HMRC website is as good as it gets, and I believe this is my tenth on-line submission. All the required financial information was in good order. The hard bit was remembering just how I'd navigated my way through the plethora of options and technicalities to make an honest and honourable return, in order to pay my dues. 

I admit I needed to look at the .pdf file of last year's submission to remind me of exactly how I'd categorised earnings relating to locum duties outside the tax administration remit of the Church in Wales Representative Body or the Church Commissioners of the CofE. The result left me owing tax after a run of years when I got a tax rebate, but never mind. I could log off with a clear social conscience, and somehow that matters to me. Perhaps it's gratitude for having enough to live on, not having to scrimp and save to give a family its just desserts.

 

Tax horror story

Yesterday, I dropped Clare off at school and then made my way to Christchurch Roath Park to celebrate the midweek Eucharist there for the second week running. Although my back was less stiff, if was still painful with certain movements, so I abandoned the idea of returning the car to Clare and going by bus into the office as I did last week. Instead I lay flat on the floor with my head on book and worked on gently lengthening my spine as I learned from my Alexander teacher thirty years ago. When Clare had finished work I fetched her by car. After supper it was study group for her and Tai Chi for me, with my back standing up well to the exercise.

Ashley and I conversed  at length by text message in the afternoon. The finalised CBS accounts had been delivered to him, and approved for submission to Companies' House tomorrow. He was in the course of trying to prove the existence of CBS as a registered trading company to the tax authorites in order to settle our VAT bill - HMRC had failed to register our three previous changes of address and then de-registered us - a consequence of their own administrative chaos following the merger of Customs and Excise and Inland Revenue. Since the last time we paid our dues they have stopped receiving cheques and will only accept electronic payment. You can only register for this by providing proof that you company exists and is trading.

More tax horrors today, and more text messages exchanged with Ashley, as the outcome of registering your annual financial statement at Companies' House is a requirement to pay immediately Corporation Tax that's due - 20% of annual surplus of income over expenditure. Again, this can only be paid for electronically. A completely separate registration process is required to identify the Company and set up an account for it as a payer of Corporation Tax. All the steps were duly followed, but the information Ashley had received from the accountants wouldn't permit him to set up a new account and by the time he had queued for ages and argued on a none too helpful helpline, he learned what was missing it was too late as the accountants had gone home for the weekend.

So, we have money we need to pay the Inland Revenue on two accounts but their system requirements make it hard to do so easily or efficiently. How easy, I wonder, do tax professionals find it? Will it be easier next time, now we know more about how things work? Or will the internal merger lead to changes that confound the end-user?  If you're working hard and struggling get your accounts filed on time it can be a nightmare. If you're unfamiliar with different on-line systems, and if you fail to meet the deadlines imposed, there fines are imposed which eat into your profit margins and weaken your economy. I wonder how much a problem it is to small businesses, and how much it contributes to small business failures?

I couldn't spend long in the office this afternoon to support Ashley, as Eddie and Ann were arriving to spend the weekend with us for the last few days of their holiday in Devon. I had paella to cook for our little family re-union and news catch-up time. We didn't talk about tax, that's for sure!

    

On-line chores

Spiro came around this morning and installed the new front room light fitting. We all agreed the right choice had been made, second time around. It looks really good in situ, so we are delighted. Then, I booked a flight for a return trip to the Costa del Sol in November, this time for locum duty in the eastern chaplaincy based of Fuengirola.  I followed Clare's example, flying with Vueling out of  Cardiff airport, getting there with the new four times an hourly airport shuttle for free with my bus pass. The cost of travel will be the lowest I've paid for ages, only partly because it's at low season prices. Best of all, flights in both directions are at convenient hours. Between now and then, autumn duties in the Vale of Glamorgan, to add to my continued pleasure in voluntary ministry.

Late afternoon, I spent a couple of hours in the CBS office adding more information to our DISC intranet site and sending emails. Then, in a couple of hours after supper, I filled in my tax form on-line. Last year this chore was completed early June because I needed to sort my affairs before going to the Costa Azahar for three months. This year, I prepared all the documents before going away on holiday, but didn't have time to steel myself for the effort of concentrating thoroughly on so much detail. It always takes me a little time to figure out what some of the questions mean, and go over the calculations to ensure I haven't forgot anything. 

After ten years of use, I find the HMRC on-line tax form procedure straightforward. Small textual variations from year to year, as fiscal policy changes. Reading and re-reading is necessary to be sure to understand and answer correctly. Answers that require text box input are a pain, as it's easy to forget that use of the 'carriage return' is not allowed. It's easy to type them in habitually, earning a big red error message. Still, it could be worse. Booking a flight and completing a tax form all in the same day gives me a great sense of achievement.