Inland Revenue on TV - Tune On The Old Tax Fiddle (1961)

 In the spirit of the HM Revenue and Customs merger I have been searching for films and TV shows about the Inland Revenue. I haven’t found a whole TV series yet but, I did come across an Armchair Theatre from 17 December 1961. 

Raymond Huntley and Henry McGee

It’s called Tune On The Old Tax Fiddle by Ronald Hardy and stars Raymond Huntley as F.K. Gaunt, Inspector of Taxes (Huntley was, I hasten to remind you, the second actor to play Dracula in Hamilton Deane’s 1927 stage play).

Author Ronald Hardy was an accountant, who based his first novel, The Place of Jackals on his experiences as a liaison officer in Indochina during the war. He continued to write thrillers such as 1973’s The Face Of Jalanath, in which the hero Farran leads a group of hand-picked mountaineers on a suicidal climb across the Kashmiri peak to destroy Red China’s vast nuclear complex of Su Tokai. It’s a surprise, then, that Tune On The Old Tax Fiddle is a sardonic comedy.

Hardy had actually sold the story to BBC Radio a year earlier. The broadcast stars Michael Hordern as Gaunt, John Slater as Dickson and Carl Bernard as Charters. It opens with an informative narration. We’re told that Gaunt is based in a cliff of ferrous concrete obtained by compulsory purchase, where there are notices, “Deprecating continuous theft of toilet paper from the staff lavatory.” The narrator compares it to a monastic order with, “Novices whose jackets don’t quite match their trousers and lay brothers in ready made suits with leather elbows.” The corridors are marked by the progress of “tea trolleys carrying teacups without saucers and teacups without saucers.” 

Gaunt receives an anonymous note which he senses will bring “a handsome harvest.” The writer says that they should ask Toby Dickson about his Marylebone Road bank account. Gaunt senses that his assistant, East (William Eedle), disapproves of anonymous letters and warns him, “We’re not concerned with morals or ethics. Only the collection of revenue.”

The TV version, directed by Charles Jarrott (Lost Horizon), signals that it won’t be entirely serious with a cartoon title sequence depicting the main characters, backed by a theme based on  ‘Goodnight Ladies.’ The TV play has a faster opening with Gaunt receiving the note and Norman Rossington as Dickson being told by his girlfriend Robbie (Vivienne Martin) that she’s shopped him.

Reviewing Toby Dickson’s file, Gaunt learns that he founded a Gents Outfitters with his gratuity after leaving the army. Now he has a very nice house with a TV in every room. Reviewing his annual returns, he calculates that his total annual drawings are £480. “He lives on 8 quid a week, could you live on 8 quid a week?” Gaunt asks East (Henry McGee). “Only if I stopped eating.” He replies.

We see Toby in his bathroom (complete with TV set) pulling a biscuit tin out from a cavity beneath the floor and pulling wads of banknotes from the secret account out of his pockets.

Gaunt says that they can’t open an inquiry on the basis of an anonymous note, but they find an omission in his returns. The interest on his wife’s bank account was not declared. That is enough of a lever to bring him in. The first Toby learns of the inquiry is when the letter is passed on by his back street accountant, who also tells him that he can’t act for him anymore.

Toby is forced to hire the high-priced Elvin (in the radio play, the character had been called Charters, so we can only assume that a real Mr Charters had surfaced and objected in the mean-time). Played by John Le Mesurier at his suavest, Mr Elvin demands money up-front and hints that this is just the start. When Toby protests that he’s good for the fee, Elvin responds that clients will promise anything when they’re scared and facing the inquiry but when it’s all over they’re not so keen to pay his fee if they lose and if they win, “they say the fee can’t be that much because there was no case to answer.”

Free Trivia Point: When Toby tells Elvin that he’s drawn all the money out of his secret Marylebone account, John Le Mesurier asks, “was that wise?” and that’s eight years before Dad’s Army!

Toby tells Elvin that the cash is safe in a biscuit tin. “They’re very good. You can bung ‘em under the floorboards and they keep the notes nice and crisp and dry.”

At their first meeting, Toby follows Elvin’s advice, dressing down and pleading that business has been bad. All the omissions are blamed on Cobb, the previous accountant. Gaunt methodically quizzes Toby on his lifestyle. Toby claims he doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink and gives his wife £6 housekeeping, keeping £2 for himself. 

Gaunt presses him to explain, if business has been so bad, where have his bank deposits come from? On sudden inspiration, Dickson claims they are winnings from horse racing. Gaunt has heard it all before and even offers to strike it from the record if Dickson withdraws the claim. But Toby persists and sends in a bunch of crumpled receipts from Turf Accountants totalling winnings of £7000. Even though the bookie checks out, Gaunt is suspicious. If Dickson had this evidence, why didn’t he declare it at the interview? Checking the runners against the form book for the previous year, Gaunt and East realise that compared to the actual odds on each horse, the odds on the receipts are fantastic. No bookie would take the bet. And they’d refuse to continue with a customer who won so much money. 

At their next interview they pressure Elvin to admit (“as a professional man”) that Dickson had never mentioned the race winnings before.

Gaunt tells a defiant Toby that they’re playing a game that started with the very first Income Tax. It’s played on both sides with a dash of good humour and a degree of cut and thrust. “In the end the bad boy pays up, the slate is wiped clean.” But there are rules. If the defaulter aids the investigation they don’t look too hard. But if he obstructs with lies and fraud, “we use every weapon available.”

The particular weapon would be a criminal prosecution under the Perjury Act, leading to imprisonment as well as a fine. Shaken, Toby admits he forged the betting accounts.

For the final meeting, a prosperous looking Dickson is laid back. He offers the tax inspectors a cigar (“fifteen shillings and a tanner each”) and tells them he’s sick of pretending to be a failure. “I’m proud of what I done! I started from nothing and built up a very big business.”

Gaunt replies that they’re here today to consider what Toby should offer in settlement. On top of the tax owed, there is the question of penalties. He has to decide whether Toby is guilty of genuine error, carelessness, negligence, or deliberate fraud. “I have no individual power to accept an offer. All I can do is recommend to the Board of Inland Revenue, and the Board will either accept it or reject it.”

Gaunt says he has no choice but to recommend a 100% penalty. “After all, you’ve had the use of our money. You’ve built your business up on it.”  On top of the £7,500 tax owed, he will have to pay another £7500 penalty. Even Elvin is shocked but Gaunt reminds him that anything less than £15,000 and the Board may still decide to prosecute for Perjury. Toby pounds the table and tells Elvin to pay it. He shakes hands with Gaunt who tells him, “It’s been – almost – a pleasure.”

As Dickson follows his accountant out of the office, Gaunt and East smoke the cigars and agree that they felt a degree of admiration for Toby’s outburst. Even if it did sway Gaunt to up the penalty to the full 100%. East queries whether the Board will support the penalty, but Gaunt doesn’t care. He is retiring and, “I won’t be here.”

But looking down out of the window, Gaunt wonders if there’s something he missed. Down below, Toby tells Elvin he’s going to pay in cash. He’s still got four more biscuit tins!

There is no line in the credits to thank the Board of the Inland Revenue for co-operation and I don’t know how authentic the script is. What struck me was that East was reminded to take mental notes only during the interview, and Gaunt’s offer to withdraw the fraudulent betting accounts from the record (perhaps they would have needed a secretary girl to take notes in those days). Gaunt’s litany of behaviours to be considered at the end also sounds very similar to the “new penalties” system visited on HMRC in the 2000’s. 

What hasn’t changed are the barbs. Toby styles himself as a risk taker where the Civil Servants all took the safe option, but later jokes about their back-dated pay rises and Selwyn Lloyd’s ‘pay pause’ (a then-current freeze on public sector pay).

Norman Rossington – then familiar from The Army Game and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – spends most of the play in a state of frenzy as Toby tries to keep a lid on his scheming lifestyle. It’s only at the end that he emerges triumphant. John Le Mesurier turns in a dependable performance as the super accountant, politely decisive at the start but crestfallen, hiding his eyes in his hand when Toby defiantly boasts to the tax inspectors about his “Four Thousand GUINEA” Chinese Carpet and TV in every room.

Henry McGee, as East, demonstrates the skills he would later exploit as urbane straight man to Charlie Drake and Benny Hill. The show definitely belongs to Raymond Huntley, stately as a purring tiger, occasionally slapping down his claw to try and pin down his prey.