Winding up the tax year

This is the first time that I need to actively submit a tax form. For the last three years my husband has had to because he is no longer employed, but now I have to declare my earnings and expenses. Today I visited my tax advisor and brought with me all the ledgers, receipts, and invoices, whatever I had collected for 2010. She was very pleased that I had done what she had requested of me back in October and then went on to point out a few errors that I had made – nothing too bad, mostly transport related. For example, you can register the full amount of a car expense (garage work, etc.) but only two thirds of the VAT. I had entered two thirds for both. For the buses, where you top up a card, you enter that expense, and not, as I had done, each journey.

She now has to sift through it all to make the correct claim. I still could not give her my 106 for the months I had worked as an employee last year, the bank form for all the taxes they took from me, and all the pension funds and other deductibles end-of-year summaries.

It will be interesting to see what the end result is. I have not yet paid income tax for the months I worked, so will that be more that the rebate we (the family unit) should receive? 

Need to look further afield

I have been busy of late, mainly with contract #3. Contract #1 had a product release at the beginning of the month, so there won’t be much work this month; #2 is cash-strapped so is only providing work when there is no other way out. #3 has a release date in March, so I should be chock-full with work, especially as I started late. But no, as I feared, the developers are so busy developing that they do not have time to provide details for me to document, or even to pass comment on what I worked out for myself by using the product. So far I have kept myself busy comparing what was there the last time I documented (in June) to what I see now, and updating the online help and written guides. To be fair, I have had some contact with a couple of developers on new features – but not nearly enough.

I was informed on Thursday that they have been interviewing local technical writers and that my services will probably not be needed after the upcoming release. I am going on a long holiday just after that, so it means that when I get back I’ll need to go project hunting. I thought of trying now, but companies do not want to talk now about their documentation needs in May.

Anyone need an experienced technical writer?