Yippee Yippeeeeeee! I won, I won!
This is just a little crow to celebrate that I won a minor appeal against a decision by the Inland Revenue to impose a £100 penalty for non-payment of National Insurance contributions that I didn't know I needed to pay because they failed to tell me so when I asked! I've also been successful in my application for exemption from paying as a low earner, because I earned less than the personal allowance of some £4000 and a few more £ per year. I did point out that my earnings for the year from 1 April 2003 to the present would be less than £2000, and that this represented a high earning year for me!
Dozy bunch sent out a letter demanding the payment AFTER my appeal and my application had been allowed, but BEFORE they'd updated their computer records! Thus I got a worrying letter this morning, but a call to the Newcastle office soon straightened things out, and I can ignore a demand for £100 that I don't really owe them.
So now I can put some dosh aside for the washing machine fund, and play a little, rather than feeding the greedy maw of the Inland Revenue! In fact, to be perfectly fair, all the IR folk I've spoken to have been very nice to deal with, but do admit that occasionally the system shoots them in the bum and sabotages their best efforts. I did, after all, ask for the relevant information about being self employed, but they failed to send it to me for over 18 months!
Now to try to find everything I need to fill in my tax return...