Es war einmal…

Twice a year, HM Revenue and Customs send out their ‘Employer Bulletin’ and, included in the package, is a CD of software designed to help small firms deal with their tax obligations and including an employee database and tax calculations. Well, it should.

This time, however, hundreds of customers received an audio CD of 16 bedtime stories being read out…in German!

So, if your payroll officer turns up for work in leather shorts, looking relaxed and slapping his thighs, kindly point out to him that he has probably been studying the wrong CD.

The manufacturer of the CD’s, a company in High Wycombe, admitted the mistake and said that CDs of German children’s stories were printed with the HMRC label and so were subsequently wrongly packaged.

What is not clear is if there now hordes of German tots fully conversant with the art of payroll calculation.

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