My agency, Red Clay Media, is an idea.
It’s USP is that we strategise, conceptualise and deliver end-to-end digital journeys by designing content-first; around the message and its delivery mechanism, not the shapes and colours dictated by traditional UX/UI designers.
I turned that idea into a service for SMEs and larger enterprises undergoing digital transformation, as an expert in building centres of content excellence to embed ecosystems to deliver high-performing content at scale.
But that dream has died.
Not due to lack of demand or will, but because HMRC and Companies House created a system that asked me to be a finance and compliance expert.
“Time for you to verify your identity”, said an email from Companies House.
I had to pay £50 to prove to Companies House I am who I say I am.
I submitted only to get a letter two weeks later to say that I hadn’t.
When I contested this, I was told that there are two stages to verification: to prove who I say I am, and to state that I am NOT a person of special interest.
Why doesn’t the government already know this?
I have owned a business called Red Clay Media since 2009.
I am being charged a fee for admin work that does not benefit me or my business in the slightest.
But I’m forced to under threats of fines and criminality.
A requirement, dictated by the government to benefit them, has become a labour and financial burden to me.
It doesn’t stop there.
HMRC and Companies House, despite both being symbiotic government departments, do not talk to each other.
Their systems are not connected.
And one department does not speak for the other.
So when HMRC told me I wouldn’t have to do any admin or paperwork, they neglected to tell me Companies House still has continued administrative demands.
Reminder, this is not my job. And it does not benefit my business.
This is all just to keep it compliant.
Not only does HMRC have no link to Companies House, despite both being intrinsically linked to us.
The HMRC departments of Corporation Tax and VAT also do not talk to each other.
As a result, I’ve dissolved my business.
I want nothing to do with either government department.
There are conspiracy theorists who think the government will control us with digital IDs and trackers in vaccines.
The government can’t even run a single department with any form of efficiency.
They pass on the cost and labour to business owners, regardless of how profitable the business may or may not be.
Not only is this incompetence directed at business owners, but also at homeowners looking to sell.
I’m being charged £99 for anti-money laundering checks, which is just a basic ID check.
The house in question, which I bought in 2006, and I still pay a mortgage.
All of this was done with Halifax, lawyers and HMRC.
But they’ve now decided that ID checks conducted by agents are not good enough, so it’s better to monetise the process by wrapping it in legislation.
Again, this process does not benefit me. It’s there to help the government extort more money from people by criminalising us before we’ve committed any crime.
HMRC and Companies House are a racket.
I would die on this hill, but I’d probably be taxed on it and asked to verify my ID at the cost of £99 to make sure it is me dying on this hill.
Then I’ll be fined for fly-tipping.
