stevio
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Post by stevio on Aug 20, 2017 18:48:39 GMT
I contract through a limited company. I do the VAT and PAYE myself
I do myself and my wife's self assessment
I pay around £600/yr for my accountant to do my company tax return and corporation tax. I think that's pretty good, how does it compare? Anyone do there own company tax returns?
He was in the same town but now it's about 30 miles away. I drop off my bank statements to him, which is a bit less convenient now. Just wondering how close an accountant needs to be and can things be done completely online?
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david42
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Post by david42 on Aug 20, 2017 21:29:49 GMT
I do my own company tax returns because I like to understand the whole process. It took me a lot of effort in the first year to learn the rules. Now that I have set up my accounting spreadsheet to automatically replicate the company tax return, it is relatively low effort.
The biggest challenge is that HMRC now insist on online tax returns. Their online submission software requires entries to be rounded to the nearest pound, but their software runs internal reconciliation between the company accounts and the tax return entries which fails because of the rounding. It can take me a whole weekend to work out which of the 100 or so numbers needs changing by 1 to satisfy their internal consistency checks. The HMRC online submission software for company tax returns is very unfriendly. I don't think there can be many people who manage to use it. I think the HMRC expects all companies to use accountants and commercial software packages.
The other problem is the HMRC online submission software for company tax returns cannot handle capital gains. That causes a lot of problems because my company used to own some shares.
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Neil_P2PBlog
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Use @p2pblog to tag me :-)
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Post by Neil_P2PBlog on Aug 20, 2017 22:29:18 GMT
I was with an online accountant (C****r A******s) for the last couple of tax years. Absolute disaster: overpriced, lots of mistakes and one hmrc fine. I stayed with them as they moved me between accountants internally and promised to cover the fine.
This year I have decided to do it all myself: perhaps for this first year of DIY I won't bother to claim expenses to keep things simple.
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Nomad
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Post by Nomad on Aug 20, 2017 22:47:54 GMT
I pay around £600/yr for my accountant to do my company tax return and corporation tax. I think that's pretty good, how does it compare? Anyone do there own company tax returns? He was in the same town but now it's about 30 miles away. I drop off my bank statements to him, which is a bit less convenient now. Just wondering how close an accountant needs to be and can things be done completely online? Apart from one annual visit to hand over my records and discuss matters, I deal with my accountant solely by email. Switching from a large city firm with high overheads to a small rural practice cut my fees by around 60%.
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duck
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Post by duck on Aug 21, 2017 4:39:14 GMT
I contract through a limited company. I do the VAT and PAYE myself I do myself and my wife's self assessment I pay around £600/yr for my accountant to do my company tax return and corporation tax. I think that's pretty good, how does it compare? Anyone do there own company tax returns? He was in the same town but now it's about 30 miles away. I drop off my bank statements to him, which is a bit less convenient now. Just wondering how close an accountant needs to be and can things be done completely online? From my experience £600 is a reasonable figure. Before I decided to retire I was paying £1k for business and personal tax to be sorted. Now I have retired and my business is simply investing the money it holds the amount I pay has dropped ..... which I am happy with! For years I have been 'digital' with my submissions to my accountants. I scan bank statements, tax statements from P2P (where they meet requirements) and they also get a copy of my spreadsheets for my business investments. I hold the paper copies that can be produced if necessary. My accountants are only 15 miles away so I have a choice, do I jump on my motorcycle or do I drop the CD that I produce into a jiffy bag ...... As a side note, I still maintain HMRC investigation insurance even though I have retired. More than happy to pay extra for that ..... and of course it is chargeable against the business.
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stevio
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Post by stevio on Aug 21, 2017 6:12:05 GMT
I do my own company tax returns because I like to understand the whole process. It took me a lot of effort in the first year to learn the rules. Now that I have set up my accounting spreadsheet to automatically replicate the company tax return, it is relatively low effort. The biggest challenge is that HMRC now insist on online tax returns. Their online submission software requires entries to be rounded to the nearest pound, but their software runs internal reconciliation between the company accounts and the tax return entries which fails because of the rounding. It can take me a whole weekend to work out which of the 100 or so numbers needs changing by 1 to satisfy their internal consistency checks. The HMRC online submission software for company tax returns is very unfriendly. I don't think there can be many people who manage to use it. I think the HMRC expects all companies to use accountants and commercial software packages. The other problem is the HMRC online submission software for company tax returns cannot handle capital gains. That causes a lot of problems because my company used to own some shares. Thanks for this I was wondering how much time you felt doing your own tax return takes up? What is your background (or really how much prior financial knowledge did you have)? Is yours a complicated business?
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archie
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Post by archie on Aug 21, 2017 6:18:50 GMT
As a side note, I still maintain HMRC investigation insurance even though I have retired. More than happy to pay extra for that ..... and of course it is chargeable against the business. I used to manage the books for a small company (not mine), the investigation insurance proved to be money very well spent.
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duck
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Post by duck on Aug 21, 2017 6:58:00 GMT
As a side note, I still maintain HMRC investigation insurance even though I have retired. More than happy to pay extra for that ..... and of course it is chargeable against the business. I used to manage the books for a small company (not mine), the investigation insurance proved to be money very well spent. I always view an investigation as 'when' not 'if'. I have always tried to maintain perfect tax records for both personal and business but I never underestimate the grief that will be caused if/when the knock on the door comes.
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david42
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Post by david42 on Aug 21, 2017 8:22:18 GMT
I do my own company tax returns because I like to understand the whole process. It took me a lot of effort in the first year to learn the rules. Now that I have set up my accounting spreadsheet to automatically replicate the company tax return, it is relatively low effort. The biggest challenge is that HMRC now insist on online tax returns. Their online submission software requires entries to be rounded to the nearest pound, but their software runs internal reconciliation between the company accounts and the tax return entries which fails because of the rounding. It can take me a whole weekend to work out which of the 100 or so numbers needs changing by 1 to satisfy their internal consistency checks. The HMRC online submission software for company tax returns is very unfriendly. I don't think there can be many people who manage to use it. I think the HMRC expects all companies to use accountants and commercial software packages. The other problem is the HMRC online submission software for company tax returns cannot handle capital gains. That causes a lot of problems because my company used to own some shares. Thanks for this I was wondering how much time you felt doing your own tax return takes up? What is your background (or really how much prior financial knowledge did you have)? Is yours a complicated business? I was an IT contractor for about 15 years until I retired last year. My only prior financial knowledge is that I had always done my own personal tax returns, reading the financial press to keep up with the law. When I switched to contracting I googled a lot and looked at a few published sets of company accounts to work out how to do my own accounts. I may be doing things wrong, but HMRC have not objected. The main complexities are of my own choosing: choosing to invest spare company cash in shares, and laterly P2P. Working out SIPP contribution carry forward rules etc. The online company tax return is the only externally imposed complexity. The whole thing was a breeze with paper tax returns. I normally set aside a couple of weekends to prepare and submit both my company tax return and my personal tax return. The preparation is around checking that my company and personal spreadsheets match all the latest information from the banks, P2P platforms, and stockbrokers, and that I have maximised tax avoidance with use of dividends and pensions. Then comes the dreaded online submission. The online company tax return is a lot less user friendly than the personal tax return. In my company accounts spreadsheet I maintain a tab dedicated to the online tax submission. That has 400 rows aligned to the the 300 or so questions in the online tax return. Each of my calculations is rounded in the same way that I think HMRC rounds it. As I type those into the online submission, I update my spreadsheet if any questions have changed or been re-numbered since last year. Then finally, fingers crossed, does it pass the online error checking? If not it can take another weekend experimenting with changing my rounding calculations to try to match the unpublished HMRC rounding rules. My spreadsheet is adorned with notes about what I adjusted to solve the rounding problem in previous years, to help me solve it next year. If you want to have a go, maybe you could try doing it without telling your accountant. If you manage to get to the end and pass the validation checks and you are still happy, then press submit. Otherwise abandon it at that point with your accountant none the wiser.
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IFISAcava
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Post by IFISAcava on Aug 21, 2017 8:22:44 GMT
I used to manage the books for a small company (not mine), the investigation insurance proved to be money very well spent. I always view an investigation as 'when' not 'if'. I have always tried to maintain perfect tax records for both personal and business but I never underestimate the grief that will be caused if/when the knock on the door comes. If your business is straightforward, I am not sure HMRC insurance is worth it. Cost offered to me was £3-400+VAT per year, the additional accountancy costs when I did get investigated (once in 20 odd years) totalled £1100+VAT. The major cost was in my time (several full days/nights) in getting everything completely in order for HMRC to look through, which isn't insured anyway! So I have a lot of credit still for any future investigation. My philosophy is only to take insurance where compulsory or where the losses would bankrupt you (e.g. healthcare in the US). Otherwise, the cumulative amount you save more than covers any losses. For example, if I had taken car hire insurance every time I'd be tens of thousands down. I've never had any insurable losses renting a car, and a couple of thousand excess loss now is nothing in comparison.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2017 8:43:32 GMT
£600 is about the norm we pay. The accountant is a bike ride away (less than a mile), but the internet is closer. I didn't know you could still get paper bank statements (sounds like a chore).
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stevio
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Post by stevio on Aug 21, 2017 8:54:14 GMT
£600 is about the norm we pay. The accountant is a bike ride away (less than a mile), but the internet is closer. I didn't know you could still get paper bank statements (sounds like a chore). I thought you had to keep paper bank statements (for a business anyway) so you can keep the records for a certain period (3yrs?) Do you have to remember to download? Are they only available for a certain period generally?
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locutus
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Post by locutus on Aug 21, 2017 9:14:32 GMT
I thought you had to keep paper bank statements (for a business anyway) so you can keep the records for a certain period (3yrs?) Do you have to remember to download? Are they only available for a certain period generally? HMRC ask you to retain records for 6 years for a Ltd company.
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Aug 21, 2017 9:33:31 GMT
My "accountant" (actually she's an Actuary, but who's counting ) takes payment in cups of tea, but gives me all sorts of grief whenever a platform's figures don't reconcile properly!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2017 11:09:20 GMT
I thought actuaries were accountants without the joie de vie. Maybe I was wrong?
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