Taxy!

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Today I calculated my income tax. You're bored already, aren't you?

Eighteen months ago I became a small business - teaching English as a second language. Six months later I had four students - one ran out of money for lessons, one offered me a great job...then very suddenly left the country and cancelled his phone. Hmmm. One got depressed and decided he couldn't handle the grammar...and the forth decided she didn't need to learn English at all.

I'd asked her "Why do you want to improve your English?", and as she answered I could see her realising that all her colleagues spoke Arabic, as did all her clients and her friends. She could get through an entire month in England using English for nothing more than buying groceries.

In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have asked. But it's an accepted fact of teaching adults - easily half your students don't really know why they're studying at all, even though they may be learning it well.

Anyway, sole trader income tax.

Ninety minutes of fiddling around with the government website - which is to say, ten minutes guessing which of the several twelve-digit random streams they'd given me a year and a half ago was my login ID. Then another ten getting my password reset, and ten clicking indecipherably-named links until I got to the right page.

And then an hour of filling out an online questionnaire. Am I a farmer? No. Am I or my spouse or legal partnership partner registered blind? Uh, no. Do I have Class Four Exemption? Seeing as I don't know what that is, probably not.

What are my costs? Well, ignoring the occasional biro and notepaper - which the student usually has lying around anyway - erm, nothing at all. Not office rental, no company car, not even a lavish restaurant meal with an 'agent' which can be put on expenses.

And income? When I set up the business, I was emphatically told I must keep all receipts from all transactions. And that's why I've had twelve receipts for short courses and individual lessons sitting safe in a ringbinder for a year.

Together coming to...a bit less than GBP400.

So I can now reveal exactly how much tax I have to pay. In round figures. The roundest figures which exist, in fact. The Arabic word is 'Sifr', from which we get the English words 'Cypher' and 'Zero'.

There's just one other thing. I can't find the form for closing down my business. It seems that, having died in the world of business, I don't know how to commit business suicide.

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