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It is a pleasure to be able to introduce this special edition of the magazine which celebrates the 20,000th Readers’ forum question. I hope that you enjoy reading about the history of the forum and agree with our choice of the question to feature as number 20,000.
The feature has proved remarkably durable and shows every sign of good health even in an era of online chats, forums and social media. Indeed, to me, and I suspect other readers, there is something reassuring in the print process. Our respondents are not keyboard warriors who fire off answers in haste in an attempt to score points off each other, but individuals who take the time to give considered answers in a genuine attempt to help fellow professionals. On behalf of all of our readers, I would like to thank everybody who has ever submitted an answer.
Taxation was certainly an early user of the question-and-answer format, but we weren’t the only ones. The Victorians had a magazine entitled Notes and Queries where questions could be posted on almost any subject (tinyurl.com/Notes-Queries). It still exists but in a very different form. If readers want to find a way of wasting hours of their time, then browsing through copies at random can be quite addictive.
Here is a typical example: ‘It was remarked by a traveller who visited the Lae-chow Islands, on the north-eastern coast of Siberia, that one of these islands is little more than the mass of the bones of extinct elephants. Can a reference be given to the book, its author and publisher?’
I don’t think that that one ever got answered – now there’s a challenge.
If you do one thing...
Read the HMRC briefing note on registering as a VAT agent. See tinyurl.com/hmrcvbnaug.
