- To
- Anyone currently doing your taxes
- From
- Keith, fourth floor
- Printed
- Tray 2, single-sided
- Re
- Doing your taxes
What to do instead of doing your taxes
I have printed eleven thousand tax returns. Not one was finished on the day it was printed. They come out of me warm and perfect, then go in a drawer until late January. I don't take it personally. I take it on file.
Five alternatives, in order of escalation. I printed them single-sided, as instructed. Work down from the top. Number five was HR's idea.
Five approved alternatives
- USEFUL-ISHSort your receipts folder by colour, then by mood.
- RABBIT HOLERead the whole encyclopedia entry on income tax, then every footnote, then the footnotes' footnotes.
- TANGENTStart a 1,000-piece jigsaw of a spring meadow.…because April.
- NEW LIFEMove somewhere with no income tax and start learning the local dialect.…because tax havens.
- FULL ABSURDITYDeclare your sofa a sovereign nation and file its first return in crayon.…because someone has to.
P.S. If you've just had your first payslip, the bit at the bottom is tax and National Insurance. Nobody explains it. I've printed the explanation. It's eleven pages.
Also avoiding
- Instead of paying the billsGather every envelope into one pile and arrange it by how threatening the logo looks.
- Instead of calling the bankFind the right phone number. Then find it again on a different page.
- Instead of cleaning the bathroomLine up every half-used shampoo bottle by height and decide which ones are 'nearly finished'.
- Instead of doing the laundryPair the socks. Give the singles a brief, respectful nod.