As tax return season cranks up a gear, on No Accounting for Taste this week we’re asking: can accountants really relax and enjoy the festive period?

When the rest of the working world is winding down for the festive period, for many accountants the tax return season has only just begun.

The pressure of the season hit sole practitioner Sam Mitcham when a Christmas song came on the radio and she cried. She realised that she didn’t feel festive at all.

Mitcham joins the AccountingWEB editorial team to talk about juggling the demands of running a practice and Christmas.

Like Mitcham, many accountants spend the Christmas period mentally submitting tax returns while attending nativity plans, wrapping presents and preparing the Christmas meal.

Mitcham tells the team how she’s planning to tackle the pressures of tax return season, whether she plans on working Christmas day, and whether she’s been able to listen to THAT Christmas song since.

Also on the show, the team takes a look at the big headlines making a splash on the site over the past week, including the NAO report on the government’s ‘inadequate’ Bounce Back Loan counter-fraud measures, the rise of the Omicron variant and what this means for accountants’ Christmas parties and HMRC chief executive Jim Harra’s appearance at AccountingWEB Live Expo.

You can read all the stories discussed on the podcast on AccountingWEB: https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/content/no-accounting-for-taste-ep106-can-accountants-truly-enjoy-christmas