FROM what I gather, Thames Water’s excuse for not paying any corporation tax is that its payments have been deferred.

A spokesman explained: “Because we are investing £1bn a year from 2010 to 2015, more than any water firm in the UK’s history, we are able to defer a lot of tax payments to future years.

“The HMRC’s capital allowance’s aim is to encourage firms to carry out infrastructure investment.”

Reading between the lines, this means you can get a deferral on your taxes in order to do work you’re supposed to do as part of your job anyway.

As far as I know, ‘infrastructure investment’ means things like replacing knackered pipes and updating sewage and water processing – in other words, things falling under the heading: “Stuff we expect a water company to do with the cash we’re obliged to pay it.”

This is potentially great news for all of us – so great that I think we should write letters to the tax office, asking for a piece of the action. I’ve got mine ready to post already; feel free to borrow it and adapt it according to your needs...

Dear Tax Office,

It’s come to my attention that tax deferrals are available for doing things you’re supposed to do as part of your professional responsibilities.

As I’m a bit short of cash, I’d like to have my own tax payments deferred. I’d like to point out that I carry a ballpoint pen in an inside jacket pocket.

Quite apart from the wear and tear on the jacket’s fabric, there’s also the stress of worrying about the top popping off and causing a stain which might then spread to my shirt.

I also write words, read words, walk around Swindon and its environs and talk to people.

Finally, I cultivate a sense of outraged bewilderment at some of the peculiar things that go on in this world.

Sometimes this feeling is so intense that I worry I’ll end up bouncing merrily off the walls of a rubber room, addressing my cat as “Your Excellency” or perhaps simply leaving the office feet first after some organ or other goes ‘pop’.     

All of the above is part and parcel of working for a newspaper, but investing in pipes and stuff is part and parcel of being a water company, so if Thames Water gets a break I think I deserve one.

Incidentally, you should expect some letters along similar lines from a few friends of mine over the next few days.

They include a vet who wants a tax deferral for touching animals, a builder who wants one for building things and a vicar who wants one for praying and delivering sermons.

Oh and there’s also the bloke with the bookshop. He wants a deferral for selling people books in his bookshop rather than, say, bowls of soup or second hand underpants.

Yours sincerely...

COURTING TERROR FOR BIKE THIEVES

PITY the poor unfortunates whose images were released by the police in a bid to reduce bike theft.

Yes, it’s right that owners should be urged to mark and lock their machines, but those alleged would-be thieves must be going through agonies of terror.

After all, it may be only a matter of time before they’re hauled before a court and handed sentences of a severity not seen since the bloodthirsty Judge Jefferies cast a pall of fear over 17th century London...

Okay, okay, I know it’s the lowest form of wit. I’ll stop now.

Banned on the run

IT’S good to see black cab and minicab firms uniting to ban people who run off without paying or are foul to drivers.

I just hope there isn’t a crackdown on late night punters who’ve forgotten their addresses, their names or even their species, as I don’t fancy having to walk everywhere.