Excuse me for that stinker

Wait! Don’t tip that carrier bag of client receipts across the floor just yet.

First, take a moment to enjoy what is fast becoming the tax sector’s first tradition of each new year: HMRC’s list of the most horrible excuses used over the past 12 months in (unsuccessful) appeals against penalties for late filing and payment.

It’s a litany of woe, comedy, fantasy, and – in the case of number three – twisted elegance.

1. My pet dog ate my tax return, and all the reminders.
2. I was up a mountain in Wales, and couldn’t find a post box or get an internet signal.
3. I fell in with the wrong crowd.
4. I’ve been travelling the world, trying to escape from a foreign intelligence agency.
5. Barack Obama is in charge of my finances.
6. I’ve been busy looking after a flock of escaped parrots and some fox cubs.
7. A work colleague borrowed my tax return to photocopy it, and didn’t give it back.
8. I live in a camper van in a supermarket car park.
9. My girlfriend’s pregnant.
10. I was in Australia.