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Time to joke, entering into extra financial burden? (4)

Ross

I think it could be either:

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4

8
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'extra financial burden?' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.

'time to joke entering' is the wordplay.
'time' becomes 't' (abbreviation).
'to' says to put letters next to each other (I've seen this in other clues).
'joke entering' becomes 'mor' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
't' after 'mor' is 'MORT'.

'into' is the link.

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I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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