I’ve spent much
of the day getting together my records for the last financial year, then
submitting my Tax Return.
It felt good to
have completed it, particularly after my initial false start (which I've already
covered here). What didn’t feel so good was seeing how little I’d
actually earnt.
It had seemed a
reasonably good year, until I'd totted up the figures; not my best,
but by no means my worst. I did a fair few Buddy shows and function gigs, as well as a play and six Glad All Over dates (the Sixties show I devised
with Glyn). I’d co-produced a play at the Brighton Festival, written and
staged a sitcom pilot - and taken mine and Glyn’s stand-up show to the Camden
Festival.
On top of this I
did a lot of teaching; working for
five different companies over twelve months, covering singing, drama, poetry
and prose, plus running a god-awful after-school club for a term of which I
despised every single minute.
The club essentially consisted of a couple of months' worth of crowd control, with my level of control being a subject of debate.
Somehow none of
this was reflected in my bank statement. The content was barely worth the cost
of the paper it was printed on. Perhaps after
twelve years of self-employment, the time has come to choose a different career.
I wonder how much cash I could raise if I sold my internal organs. Would that be tax
deductible?