08/06/2022
When I started my accountancy studies back in the last century 😫 I was advised to buy Hardman's Tax Rates & Tables. I have been buying them every year since then, and found them to be an invaluable source of information. Last year they stopped publishing them, and I was very sad. Particularly as the alternative was an all singing all dancing website with access to a vast library of tax facts and figures, case law. All of this came at a monthly cost of twice the annual price of the paper tax tables. I declined. Croner's contacted me a few months ago to say I could have access via their website to the Hardmans Tax Tables, free of charge. That sounded great. However, this proved to be painful. Firstly I had difficulty logging onto their website. When I eventually did get in I could not find the free information. My login did not come with access to the Tax Tables. So I used the chat bot to ask why. Chat bot said to call Croners. So I did, and was pleasantly surprised that a human being answered the phone almost immediately. However, the lady I spoke with could see there was some sort of glitch with my log in. It hadn't been set up correctly. So she is emailing someone somewhere to get it sorted out.
Gone are the days of having a printed book that you can easily reference. Now you have to log into some website somewhere (when it workds), remember a password, find the tiny corner of that website that the information you require is hidden, and then eventually you might find what you need.
Then post on social media about your experience 😅
This is why I am a Luddite, and I prefer paper. This is why I think there is a need for information to be in paper form as well as online. Not everyone has access to online. I know many people prefer online, and it is inevitably the future. But there is still a huge place for old fashioned paper, for those who want it.
Hence I invented the Fox Folder 🦊