Andrew Vine: A trial of strength when taxman turns into Kafka

“All bills, isn’t it?” he quipped with a grin. He’s right. It does sometimes feel like everything that comes through the letterbox is the postal equivalent of somebody with their hand out, demanding payment.

I’d been expecting a tax bill, so no surprise, even though it was several weeks overdue. The surprise was it being printed with lots of red. “Final reminder,” it howled. “You have missed the deadline for paying your tax,” it said in very large letters.

“If you don’t pay now the debt will be passed to our debt collection service to collect,” it added. Oh, so that’s what debt collectors do, is it? Collect debts. That’s clear, then.

Now I’m prompt about paying bills, and always have been. In they come, and out the money goes. Who wants letters printed in red? Not me. But if nobody tells me how much I owe, it’s rather difficult to pay up.

Act One of The Taxman Cometh, a journey into a labyrinthine Kafkaesque mindset characterised by gnomic anti-logic, opened with a call to the tax office.

The telephone was answered by a voice recognition system that doesn’t appear to recognise anything other than the sort of clipped tones of a BBC announcer of the 1940s. “Is your query about a tax bill?” it asked. “Yes.” “Is your query about a tax bill?” “Yes.”

This exchange continued without variation for several minutes, until the voice recognition system decided it was wasting its time on somebody who didn’t speak English and put me on hold to await an “adviser”.

The next 20 minutes crawled by, gazing out of the window at the drizzle whilst listening to piped music and a recorded voice helpfully informing me that I was in a queue.

Act Two commenced just as I was being lulled into a doze by the music with the arrival of a deadpan male voice. Still, looking on the bright side, it was a human being who seemed to recognise somebody speaking English when he heard it.

I explained that I’d had a final demand to pay a bill that I hadn’t received, and asked why it had never been sent. “Your tax return was submitted online, wasn’t it?” he asked in an accusatory manner.

That’s right, January 2, well within the deadline, as recommended by that cartoon chappie with the bowler hat and toothbrush moustache that the Revenue uses to encourage us all to cut down on paperwork.

But I didn’t receive a bill. He replied: “It was done online, and the details of how to pay are online.”

Yes, I’m sure they are. But if you don’t tell me how much I should pay, the details of how to pay are a bit redundant, don’t you think? The first sight of how much tax I should pay has been in a final demand to settle a bill that I haven’t had.

I began to think the voice recognition system had switched itself back on, because he repeated the line about the details of how to pay being online.

There comes a point in every conversation with the poker face of bureaucracy when the only course is to try to break the deadlock. “I’ll get the payment off to you today,” I said. “But really, doesn’t failing to tell me what I owe and then sending a final demand for a bill I haven’t had strike you as absurd?” “No sir, it doesn’t,” he replied.

There was a moment’s pause, and then Act Three began. “The bill you’ve had isn’t what you owe,” he said. “It’s gone up because of interest charged for late payment.”

Terrific. So not only am I now liable for an extra charge because I haven’t paid a bill I wasn’t sent, in your final demand for payment, which is in fact your first demand, you’re asking me for a sum less than I owe? “That’s right sir.” Doesn’t even that strike you as absurd? “No sir, it doesn’t.”

What would have happened if I hadn’t called, and just paid what I’d been asked for? “You’d have received a further bill for the amount outstanding.” Wouldn’t it make more sense just to have added the extra sum to the final demand? He repeated the line about a further bill being sent out. In that case, how much extra do I owe? “£2.23 sir,” he replied.

So if I add £2.23 to the figure on the bill, is it all settled? “You could do that, sir,” he replied in the dubious tone of one being asked if it was a good idea for me to move every penny I have to the Cayman Islands with the intention of never paying tax again.

We ordinary people are all but helpless in the face of this sort of tortuous officialdom, but before I took my farewell of the taxman, I did have one last question. “While I’m on, would it be possible to speak to Mr Kafka please?” He went quiet for a moment.

“Nobody of that name here, sir.” Oh, he’s there all right, if only in spirit.