For two days running, I’ve been trying to call the phone number of a government department to get some advice. Yesterday’s was Customs and Excise (trying to find out how to send the Looperlative back to Bob for him to repair my huge mistake), and today it’s called the Inland Revenue, to find out why I’ve suddenly been sent a bill for FOUR YEARS of national insurance payments, with one month to pay and no prior warning, despite having paid my NI on my last god-knows-how-many tax bills…
Sadly, both lines are permanently engaged. I’ve been trying for ages. Yesterday, I eventually gave up and emailed HMRC and they kindly called me back this morning with the info I required (very confusing call though – apparently, they can’t really deal with the idea that you can be sent an electrical item to beta test that has a declared value – either it’s a beat unit and isn’t worth anything, or it’s worth something and therefor you bought it. The notion that there’s a declarable insurance value because of the work that’s already gone into it, despite it not having a street value due to it being a prototype is not something covered in UK customs legislation… doh!)
So today I’ll be mostly hitting redial and hopefully eventually finding out why I’ve suddenly got this bill, and what it’s for!