My View - Wednesday May 2nd 2018 

Few things bring me to tears of frustration faster than filling out an online tax return. I freely admit that I'm a bit thick when it comes to numbers. I failed GCSE Maths three times before I scraped a C. 

I just can't do it.  Every step of the way I've been blocked or told to call another number, then passed to a recorded message involving 12 options. Emails have bounced back requiring further details. I've been through two User ID's and had to have my UTR re-instated. I'm at the stage where I'd prefer a UTI than another UTR. 

On phone call number four, they asked me to set up a voice recognition code, whereby I had to repeat the phrase 'my voice is my password' three times. Can you imagine my tone on that recording? I'm going to have to wind myself up every time I ring them now, just so my inflection matches the incandescence. 

I wouldn't mind, but it's not like I even earn much. Most of it is PAYE and this is for 2016-17, so I'm way ahead of the game in terms of completion time. So I feel like I'm trying to do the right thing by saving them a huge backlog at the end of their financial year and they're just jeering at me. I imagine them sat around, typing numbers on their calculators, when turned upside down, spell 'go2hell' (that's 1134206). 

I don't get this wound up about the kids leaving half-eaten yoghurt cartons strewn across the windowsill. I'm even calmer upon finding the new kittens have deposited a brown gift in my slipper. And if I had to choose between two anger-inducing situations, I'd opt for being stuck on the M62 in stationary traffic for five hours on a baking hot bank holiday, rather than completing an online tax return.  

I just take it all so personally, berating myself for focusing on snogging instead of algebra at school. And because I don't really understand what I'm doing, I don't really know if they're fobbing me off, so I can't challenge them. My tactic is to turn into some awful crawler on the phone, hoping I may be able to woo them into submission. But even I tire of that, 24 minutes in, when they say "Yeah, I don't know what's wrong there, have you tried emailing?". 

To hurl another curve ball into the quadratic equation, my surname has changed since the last time I was working freelance. But Miss Chippindale is stored on a different system to Mrs Bond, so I had to ruin Mr Bond's egg mayo lunchbreak by making him search for our marriage certificate. Grounds for divorce, he said.  

Seriously. It's not good for my health. Perhaps I need a steadier job involving one office, same journey, five days a week, then I would never ever have to do this again. I might see if there's anything going at HMRC.