Which brings me to my beef about donations. Now, I’ve long been a defender of the Tax Office. It does an important job in making sure we pay as much tax as we should. One reason I got out of accounting was because I decided the only interesting part of it was giving tax advice, but I didn’t want to spend my life helping the well-off avoid doing their duty to the community.

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But a few weeks ago, I got a letter from the Tax Office, via the myGov website, naturally, that was the strangest I’ve ever had from them. And it really pee’d me off.

The standard form letter said they’d happened to notice that my claim for donations was a lot higher than other people’s, and they were just wondering whether I might possibly have made some mistake. They hoped I knew you could only claim for donations to outfits that had been awarded tax deductibility. And they hoped I knew I shouldn’t be claiming for any donation for which I couldn’t produce a receipt.

If, on reflection, I realised I had made some terrible “mistake”, I was free to amend my return and thereby, they hinted without saying, avoid possible further investigation and penalty.

But, failing that, there was no suggestion I do anything about their veiled accusation, except, presumably, sit there shivering, waiting for the taxman’s knock on the door.

It may be true, as coppers always say, that if you’ve done nothing wrong you’ve got nothing to fear, but that doesn’t stop you resenting an unwarranted insinuation that you’re dishonest.

What gets me is that, knowing my claim was large, I would have happily included a detailed list with my return, but the taxman made no provision for me to do so. Nor, when he sent his accusatory letter, did he invite me to explain or substantiate my claim.

And I get the feeling that the taxman’s algorithm just found an outsized number and dispatched a letter without further consideration. Did he know that I always make a big claim? Did he allow for the likelihood that people on high incomes can afford to be more generous? Did he note that I’d been a tax agent for many years and so didn’t need reminding of the rules?

Well, I know the taxman doesn’t want to be burdened by any extra information from me, but I’ll give him a heads-up anyway. My claim for this financial year won’t be as big as last year’s, but the one for next year will be a whopper. I’m thinking of setting up a charity of my own. All above board, naturally.

Ross Gittins is the economics editor.

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