The last few weeks have been exhausting. Teresa and Lucy have been run off their feet - even Lucy is now coming in at 9am and has occasionally stayed past 5pm to meet clients coming in after work, and collect their papers.
Paul, Maria and I have been kept busy preparing sole traders' accounts for the tax team to include on returns.
One client phoned me to ask why the tax had been worked out differently this year on her dividends. By rights it should have been Teresa who took that call, but she was out of the office collecting some paperwork from an elderly farming client, so I had the delight of trying to explain the dividend tax credit and how it was abolished and replaced with a 0% £5,000 allowance.
She found the dividend tax credit system very hard to understand, but she found the concept of income that is taxed but at 0%, even harder.
"If it's taxed at 0% that means it isn't taxed," she kept insisting.
"I know they work out as the same amount but they are legally different," I said. "There is no tax on some kinds of income, like interest from an ISA, but there is tax on this £5,000 of dividend income, it is just that the rate of tax is 0%."
"Well that's just silly," she huffed. "You can't have a rate of tax that's 0%. It doesn't make sense."
"I know it sounds peculiar but there is a rate of tax that's 0%," I try to reassure her.
"It's ridiculous, you don't know what you're talking about, I'll wait for Teresa next time," she sniffed and put the phone down.
I hope she does wait for Teresa next time. I can do without being told I don't know what I'm talking about. I stopped work on a nice client's accounts to be told I don't know what I'm talking about?
"Cheer up, Allie," said Paul and made me a cup of tea. "It'll all be over soon."
1st February can't come quickly enough for me.