The Aardvark Blog

Two good pieces of news, Valentine's Day, Changes to tax reporting for small businesses and the self-employed, Working at Aardvark,
12/02/2016

The news has been so grim recently, that I was pleasantly surprised to see two small pieces of good news - and both of them book related. Firstly sense has at last been seen and the Cambridgeshire phone box library has been reprieved. And apparently it never needed planning permission. Who would have thought it ? Well, yes - the entire world, but as I have learnt myself from dealing with bureaucracy, whilst commonsense is in short supply, mindless adherence to rules seems to be widely available.

The other piece of good news features that estimable establishment the 'Village Bookshop' of Woodford Green. There, an assistant agreed to choose and hand deliver - together with flowers - three books for a Parisian writer's friend who was in hospital being treated for cancer. This small act has apparently restored the writer's faith in humanity. And people say that books don't matter. Hurray for Village Bookshop, and may its books and village customers forever increase.

But what is that I hear you say. There is another piece of good news, the return of Aardvark's Valentine Market this Sunday from 10am-3pm. If you are able I would urge you to come over for this year's Valentine's Event - not least for the pleasure of hearing Gareth Rees-Roberts play his exceptional Granada-made instrument. There is always much excitement about the great violins made in Cremona in the 17th Century, but I think that it is often forgotten that there are still wonderful instrument makers working today, constructing superb pieces by hand in the traditional way. The Granada guitar makers are perhaps the finest example of this phenomenon. Gareth will be playing a suite of music from Latin America and Spain itself.

Meanwhile back in the real world of mindless bureaucracy, I yesterday received a reply from the relevant minister regarding my complaint about the proposed HMRC changes to reporting and payment for small businesses and the self-employed. It is evident from the letter, that whilst some ground is being given, the basic idea of moving our reporting and taxation to quarterly assessments and payments from the current annual filing, is still in place. If you are mad enough either to run a small business or work for yourself, I would earnestly suggest that you contact your accountant and for that matter your local MP. Whilst the government are saying that this change will save small businesses £400 million per year, I have been told categorically by my accountant that charges will rise. Also you will end up paying two lots of tax in the same year (one in arrears and one in "real time"). When I questioned the local MP on this matter, his response was that we were all going to be issued with a magic computer system that will do everything for us. While I would truly like to see a computer system that had absorbed and could apply the 16,000+ pages of the UK tax code, my feeling is that such a system doesn't exist and never will. Also, if such a system were to be available and an error was made in programming, would it be small businesses that were fined or the software developers - who may well not be in the UK? I think we know the answer to that one.

Finally I am excited to say that we have had some excellent applications for our position here at Aardvark Books, and we will be announcing appointments and notifying unsuccessful candidates next week. The range and accomplishments of many of those who have applied, just confirms for me what a talented group of people live here in the mid-Marches.