January 28, 2010

First Blood

Regular readers will recall that I started an offensive against HMRC (Her Majesties Revenue and Customs) late last year.

I am pleased to report that I won the first skirmish. I was issued late filing penalties to the tune of £300. I have just received a letter from HMRC saying that they have "...been reduced to £0.44p".  This is not, of course, momentous. I would guess that these late penalties are discretionary and that thousands of people see reductions every year. The champagne remains corked.

The major battle lies ahead. They say I owe them £4000. I disagree. I wrote asking to see the contract that they imagine is in place which allows them to extort money from me. I quoted several of their own statutes (remember: every statute must contain a remedy within it) and instructed them that I would be delighted to settle as soon as I saw said contract containing two wet signatures. I gave them a fair period in which to find this contract, or invent one, or bluff their way through. They failed to do so in the time alloted to them, so they are in dishonour, and I have gained estoppel by acquiescence. This is a mighty powerful thing in law. I have won already, but they may still lob a few grenades over the ramparts of Ranty Barracks. I am ready, I am dug in, and I also have several unused weapons that I can deploy.

To preempt their salvo, I also penned and posted a letter to them, quoting yet more of their own statutes, this time the statutes concerned genocide and financing an illegal invasion, and I anticipate a reply soon. I will update you on their reply whether it is good, bad or indifferent. (I suspect indifference will not be in their armoury).

Let's see what happens.


CR.

10 comments:

Uncle Marvo said...

You top chap.

Are you going to post these correspondences (rempoving the names of any guilty parties, obv)?

Well done!

Captain Ranty said...

Marv,

I tried to post the letter that I sent off but Blogger didn't like it for some reason and refused to "save post". The only way I could publish this post was by removing my cut & pasted letter.

I had actually written this post yesterday morning and arsed about with blogger until I was blue in the face.

I gave up in the end.

I wonder if a pdf version would post better than the original Word doc?

Anyhoo, the answer is yes. I will provide evidence of my wins.

CR.

Uncle Marvo said...

Burqad if I know.

I've only ever inserted a picture on Blogster, never a doc.

Let me know if I can help with some HTML magic - it's all I'm any good at.

subrosa said...

Great result CR, but as you say still a way to go. A PDF should do fine with a link of course.

Aren't you impressed by my knowledge of blogger?

Captain Ranty said...

Thanks Rosie.

Impressed? I am in awe!

CR (aka The Luddite).

Dick Puddlecote said...

CR, get a Scribd account, and you can upload scans, PDFs, anything.

Like here.

Captain Ranty said...

Scribd?

I think I have some cream for that tucked away in a drawer. I lost the applicator though.

Just fuckin wid ya. Thanks, I shall investigate forthwith, if not sooner.

CR.

John Pickworth said...

Word docs contain lots of hidden code that conflicts with Blogger. You'd be better re-saving it as a plain text (or rich text - .rtf) document and the copying the text into your post.

Anonymous said...

Well done, Captain. Fingers crossed.

Captain Ranty said...

Thanks John, I'll try that.

Thanks Mrs F. Crossed, and then maybe broken, by the Men in Black!

I'll give it my best shot.

CR.