How times have changed

[John Pruden]

I was never an advocate for health exercises Ivan. How come I'm still alive and so many of these health freaks pass away long before their time. When I say this to the wife she just says your pickled though. We may have the reputation of being big consumers of alcohol, but this is a mis interpretation of sailors being drunk. We were brought up on dry ships and what they probably saw was akin to feeding time at the zoo, only we had been dry in some cases for months on end. Anyhow most of us don't drink much these days as spill most of it. Cappy had the right idea when he made his cider in the bottom of the apple barrel, this excuse he made about falling in, was to fool people. Cheers JS

john slow and easy DID YOU EVER HEAR OF A TORTOISE DIEING YOUNG? JP

[john sutton]

In the 1940s and 50s after the war, my millionaire uncle Jack from Blackpool, with dozens of amusement arcades, and boarding houses, Dads brother, nowt to do with Dad he was always broke. he and all his family of six went to Cape Town every winter from November to Easter to stay with another Uncle.
He had to go down to the Union Castle Office in London to book the voyage to the Cape and back.
He always paid in cash. several thousand pounds. [ no money in the bank], a room at home stacked with Money from floor to ceiling, all in notes. Just like a paper warehouse, I happened to see it once.
After a few years of paying cash at the UCL Office, the Inland Revenue got on his trail.
He suddenly disappeared with his family and reappeared later in the States.
So in those days you had to go to the Shipping Office.
Brian

did you know that years ago it was standard practice for the revenue to send inspectors on cruises(incognito) and note who was spending money and what they did for a living.
they actually had a file on everybody and if you went before the inspector and pleaded poverty they could produce a file with details of where you were spending big money

[Keith Tindell]

Once the revenue go for you, its your job to prove your innocence, and if you dont have a reasonable explanation they dish out the punishment. i guy i know could not account for all his earning, so it was £30, 000 fine, he had to remortgage his house, The only people who pay the correct ammount of income tax in the UK are the people on PAYE wages, kt

[John Arton]

A good friend of mine (Captain in C.P., now sadly dead) his brother was quite high up in the Inland Revenue (as it was then). In the early 70's his brother told him that the revenue had formed a special unit to investigate merchant seamen as they (revenue) suspected all seamen of cheating on their tax returns.
I know of one Master in C.P. who was driven to near suicide by the Revenue as they claimed he had received a 17.5% bonus of a multi million dry docking in Singapore. There evidence consisted of stores/paint/spares etc. invoices covering the dry docking period that he had signed for receipt of.
They actually had the originals of the delivery invoices with his signature on them, also the yard reports on work undertaken with his signature on them. They (revenue) had totted up the costs of all those invoices and reckoned he had been given a 17.5% bonus from all those invoices.
It took him a number of years to prove that he was only signing for receipt of goods etc. and had not raised the orders himself, despite getting the purchasing dept. in C.P. to show the revenue that it was them that had raised the orders.
The pressure they put on him with the threat of jail sentence ruined his marriage and drove him to near suicide.
rgds
JA
p.s. as far as I am aware the inland revenue are still the only people who can enter your home without a warrant

[happy daze john in oz]

John, Customs and Exice also have the rightt o enter your home without a warant if thye believe there is a case to do so.

About 6 months after I had gone ashore received a letter from IR telling me I had under paid my tax in the previous year at sea?
I replied saying thta any tax deducted had been done so by the shiping companies I had been employed with and maybe they talk with them. Never heard any more about it.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
Lucky you, when I was boarding the Southern Cross to emigrate to NZ I was stopped by two revenue inspectors who relieved me of 70 pounds, they said I had not paid tax on Sunday's at sea, as you say all tax was taken out by the shipping Companies, I had to either pay up or not sail and then still pay up.
And they talk about Australia's highway robbers.
cheer Des