Ben Goldsworthy

Now my advice for those who die, Declare the pennies on your eyes, ‘cause I’m the Taxman, Yeah, I’m the Taxman.The Beatles, Taxman Just shy of one year after it began, my battle with the UK tax authority is finally over. When we left off, I had managed to claw back several thousands of pounds, but had just been hit by a curveball that left me apparently owing a couple grand more than I expected to. However, I couldn’t really work out why. Photo by the author As a reminder, this was the latest…

Last week, President Macron tried to annul the right to protest. In France. In France. Whatever next: a ban on casual infidelity, impossibly ornate tiny cakes, or dismissive shrugging? How did we get here? The 17th of October¶ On the 17th, the government lost control, both within metropolitan France and in its overseas territories. The police added to their bloody tally of eyeballs and hands. An English retiree (who we can probably safely assume was not taking part in any protest) had a hole…

In the future, we will use AI to cure diseases. But right now, [we’re using it] mostly [for] murder, surveillance, and surge pricing for the McRib.Jon Stewart, John Wilson (The Daily Show, S31E111) [h/t Jim Nielsen] I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that it’s been a weird year for ‘AI’ (or, more specifically, LLMs). Two years ago, LLMs struggled with basic maths problems; last month, a model solved one of the Millennium Prize Problems (winning $1m, for a purported cost of $15m, and…

Charmingly, last year, I fretted over having published my annual review a mere one and a half months late; alas, here we are, half-way through the following year. Maybe these annual reviews will become like Ramadan, shifting slightly each year until it eventually makes it back to its starting location of ‘being on time’. Methodology ¶ Last year, I highlighted my unimpressive average success rate over the past three years, and thought that part of the problem is that I’m not very consistent in…

I wrote at the start of the year about my parlous experience with the British tax and student loan authorities, whilst resulted in me being on the hook for several thousands of pounds in the previous tax year. My goal is to reclaim almost every single penny of that… …but the bastards won’t make it easy. As a reminder: when we last left our intrepid hero (i.e., me), I had three avenues of reclamation ongoing: amending my tax return for 2024–25 UK tax year, where I had overstated my…

At the start of the year, I detailed how an error on my part, compounded by the repeated incompetence of two organs of the British state, resulted in me temporarily owing several thousands of pounds to the taxman. I’ll soon follow up with how my efforts to reclaim my ill-gotten gains have progressed, but first I want to take you on an intriguing digression. In short: after much effort, I finally got (some) of my already-paid student loan repayments credited against my tax bill. But, in the…

In the previous UK financial year (2024–25), I earnt the princely sum of £9,500 in UK-taxable income (due, in no small part, to moving abroad in the summer). This was to be all covered by my Personal Allowance of £12,500-ish per year, and so my total taxable amount should have been nil. So why—the fuck—did I just have to lend the taxman almost eight and a half thousand pounds? ‘Just get an accountant’, you say? Never! I figured out how to file my US taxes on my own, and only once did I…