Admission of guilt

Good weekend?

I started mine by aiding and abetting tax evasion.

On Friday evening, I paid a VAT-registered tradesman off the books, contravening VATA 1994, s 72(1) with the beery abandon of a man who’d had a couple of pints earlier the same day.

The details: a local plumber arrived at my south London flat at around 5.30pm. I invited him to fix the leak in my toilet, which he did so with efficiency and a modicum of bum-cleft. The price of his 40 minutes of service was £70.80, for which he issued a VAT invoice.

But the quart of golden ale purchased at lunchtime had left me reckless and short of the correct change. I handed over three £20 notes, a tenner, a 50p piece and two 20p coins.

“Keep the change,” I slurred, ushering a bemused drainage technician out of my home before he could wipe the sugary tea from his chin.

That was my crime – and my shame.

The tax concerned (2p) was small, yes, and, sure, the plumber might well declare it.

But the wan light of Monday morning had a sobering effect, and I’m unwilling to take any sort of risk given my position as a Taxation journalist and otherwise scrupulous taxpayer.

Thus, I offer my penitent self to readers and Revenue alike.