The Customer is Always Right?

[Colwyn]

I have just begun the jolly task of completing my self-assessment Short Tax Return. HMRC informs me that this form is not available online nor can you order one online (so I had better get it right first time!). Nor can I chose for myself to complete the short version. Instead I am informed that "HMRC will send it to certain customers". Interesting use of the word customers. No doubt it comes from all that blather about the public sector having to learn to operate more like the private sector. The kind of nonsense that leads people to talk of prisoners being "consumers of custodial services" - I kid you not!

[Eric]

Or "service users"[!]  I hate that phrase.

[Colwyn]

Well, I shoudn't have grumbled. I was half way through an extensive list, pagefuls, of exclusions and special cases, when I discovered I was ineligible for the Short Return. Due a small amount of untaxed overseas earnings I have to fill in the Full Return. "HMRC Customer Services", or some such department, are speeding the paperwork to me and are happy to have been of service.