Clients - don't you just love them!

Just had a call from a client.  He asked what I was referring to when I spoke with his wife earlier in the day about the monthly CIS returns.  "I don't do anything monthly" he says, but I pay the tax once a quarter...

Heart failure at this end of the phone.  He has been a client for 10 years.  So I explained what the monthly return was, and how I thought he had been posting them off every month since they were introduced was it 4 years ago - total blank - "no, I haven't done anything like that..."

So we arrange a meeting for tomorrow to work out what to do next - winding up the company may be top of the agenda if there are 4 years of penalties to face.  I can't understand how he has never received a penalty notice when I have been declaring the total cis tax on each of the last few years' P35s.  All a total mystery.

Then half an hour later, he rings me back - "Oh you mean the MONTHLY returns that I send off on the 5th of each month." - well, yes, that is what I had been trying to explain - "Of course I do those.  I didn't realise that is what you meant".  Just wondering how many monthly returns he does and which one he thought I was referring to...

So everyone is happy again and off we go.

It's lucky he is a really nice client!  But he is a builder and not an accountant....