Tax on TV: Sort your paperwork or watch The Business Inspector on Channel 5

If only all small business owners had time to watch TV and would choose to watch a new 4 part series: The Business Inspector, a new programme, that premieres on 10 March. It's sponsored by HMRC!

Although HMRC are not referenced in the programme they are co-producing it and have paid £370,000 for the privilege. Their objective: To raise awareness among small businesses that they need to keep good records.

I well remember the campaigns about record keeping that were run by the then Inland Revenue in the mid 1990s. This was during the reign of the cartoon Hector the Inspector when the self assessment system was first introduced. I only threw out the old cassette and old video last month during a tidy up. Might have been fun to have compared the messages with the new programme. I wonder how the relative investments compare and what the current sponsorship is REALLY expected to achieve.