I don't mean rat but can't use the S word

Every superhero has an arch nemesis. Superman has Lex Luthor, Spider-man has the Green Goblin, Batman has the Joker, Bananaman has Apple Man. As my alter ego of Web Developer Man, my Achilles heal is VAT. Whenever I have to do anything that involves VAT, my brain shuts down and I find myself unable to perform even the simplest calculations or programming tasks. This is because, like all superheroes, I too have an arch nemesis. One who knows my weakness and can exploit it. He is known as Tax Man.

Because I’m taking more responsibility in running the business side of things, I am learning more about the intricacies of the financial and legal nonsense. This is hard for me because I have little to no patience for idiots. And everyone who works for the evil HM Revenue and Customs is an idiot.

Not only do they take most of my hard earned cash, they also have silly rules. For instance, since moving my secret base of programming operations to my home (29 Acacia Road) I no longer have to personally pay for things like tea, coffee, soap or toilet paper. I can run that through the company. However, I still have to pay for things like milk and biscuits because they are seen as perks. I just don’t follow the logic. Is a chocolate digestive really more of a perk than wiping my arse? I don’t think so.

They also like to make things ridiculously complicated. I recently helped my fiancée fill in her tax return. What should have been a very simple job of writing the income, the expenditure and the net profit was made difficult by silly notes that referenced sub-notes that referenced pages elsewhere that made no sense whatsoever. Being a government site, they tend to talk in double-negatives and use 50 words where 1 will suffice. Not only that but they are keen to tell you what you cannot claim for but there is very little information offering what you can claim for. If that wasn’t enough, they point out at every opportunity that failure to complete the form correctly will result in you being imprisoned, hung, drawn, quartered and then burnt at the stake.

I suggested doing it online because, being a web guru, I think everything should be done online. However, once logging on to their site, I soon realised this was a silly idea because their website is rubbish. Conceived by a moron and designed by an idiot would be my verdict.

I have recently come to the conclusion that they are deliberately making things overly wordy and unnecessarily complicated to break our spirits so our resolve will be weaker when they come to steal the rest of our hard-earned wages. I have therefore taken it upon myself to end their tyranny. I believe I have located their secret base. It is in the sewers where they dwell with the rest of the rats. I am going there to destroy them once and for all. I am fed up of having to eat toilet paper because I can’t claim for biscuits.