big brother's view

The end of October marks the last day for handing in your tax self assessment forms. Although you can file on-line until the end of January.

And the postal strike makes things more interesting. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) site is not very helpful. It tells you to make sure you post early. No excuse accepted.

I normally avoid everything to do with form filling. I worry about facing fines if I make a mistake. The last two years I had an accountant file my return for me. This year I decided to do it myself. “It can’t be that hard”, I thought. “Save money and get to know my business better.”

I booked myself onto a HMRC workshop. A whole morning on tax returns. It was very useful. The tax man (or tax woman in this case) appeared to be quite human.

She said that they did not expect us to be accountants. As long as we made a genuine effort to get the calculations correct, we would not be fined for mistakes. Just charged the outstanding amount with interest.

An interesting statement. My accountant estimated several of the more complex calculations. I do not think I was getting value for money from them. Another reason to file for myself.

Stevenage tax office is in Southgate House. The building next to mine. You can see it in silhouetted in this sunrise picture Whilst I was there, I took a picture of my flat. Not very good quality, but that’s camera phones for you.

I realised how easy it is to see into my my home from these offices.

Makes it nice and easy for the tax man to check on me.

I met Councillor Brian Underwood at a seasonal get together with the board of Stevenage Homes just before Christmas. He is one of the local councillors for Bedwell, which is the ward The Towers is in.

He is also on the town’s Planning and Development Committee so if any one knows what is happening with the Stevenage Town Centre Regeneration scheme, you would expect it to be him.

He could not give any firmer date for the demolition of The Towers than the 5 years minimum that was given to us by Stevenage Homes. But he did say that Stevenage Borough Council are going to bring forward new plans soon with fewer apartments.

How this will affect the overall regeneration scheme is unclear. As I understand it, the first stage of the scheme was to be the building of a luxury apartment complex at the south end of the shopping precinct, where The Towers now stands. The sale of these properties was going to finance the regeneration of the rest of the Town Centre. This is the ‘public interest’ justification for the compulsory purchase order on our homes.

Councillor Underwood also said that the Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) decision to stay in Southgate House has no affect on the regeneration scheme as the redevelopment was never going to include this building.

We chatted about how the credit crunch had affected other developments in the town. He said that recently completed apartments were not selling. With housing associations making up a significant proportion of the few sales that there have been. Something I have heard from several sources now.

Hardly surprising, even if people can get a mortgage, most are holding off buying in the expectation that prices will continue to fall.

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