In amongst all that is the small matter of an expected refund cheque from HMRC for overpaid tax - part of this - of around £15k. It's almost a month late now despite numerous phone calls to chase it up.
Of course, if you're even a day late just submitting a form to HMRC you are fined £100, and if you have the temerity to be late paying - for whatever reason - you are charged a daily interest rate and/or a debt collector will be sent to your home or business (I've experienced both)**.
Where are my interest payments, HMRC? Where's my right to apply fines for your incompetence? I've got a large VAT bill which you won't have any sympathy with me over if I were to quote cashflow difficulties, or even that my staff are complete dickheads and can't put a cheque in an envelope and send it. Yet that £15k which you find so difficult to process could well be part of the problem for a small business.
And if you become assertive and demand the money which you are owed and which is long overdue remember (the overpaid tax is for last year), HMRC get all touchy and threaten to cut you off for being 'offensive', the prissy berks.
Dealing with government agencies on the most simple of processes is akin to trying to fell an oak tree with a pair of secateurs. Yet if a member of the public were to be anywhere near as incompetent, they'd be mercilessly bankrupted and brutalised in short order.
The state is truly a hideous evil.
Next up: Staggering indolence experienced trying to obtain a court document for which they apparently have an established system for issuing. The words 'inept' and 'lazy' just don't cover it adequately.
** Addendum: Forgot to mention that the collector who arrived unannounced at our business went away with a cheque for £11k ... and lost it.
