Hi all,
New to this forum. I really appreciate the great posts and support here. I started my own ltd company and started my project (in IT) 2 weeks ago. We went to an accountant nearby and I don't think that he is the right person. Here is what happened when we met him a couple of days ago for the first time,
He looked at the contract, literally flicked through pages in less than 5 mins and declared that IR35 will be a problem.
He asked us a couple of questions, for example, "the right to do work at your own time and at your own pace". We tried to explain to him that when you are an IT contractor working on a project funded for say 3 months, you have to go and do the work in that time period, but you can't go on extending things at your own pace. You have to be at the client's place and do office hours for several reasons such as secured access to the data, to facilitate exchange of information between different groups and building security constraints. I told him that depending on the nature of work, the constraints could be different and so would the IR35 conditions be. He didn't listen to us, instead, compared this to say a plumber's work, which is a different case altogether, and used the same yardstick to judge our scenario and insisted that IR35 would be a problem for us and we should look for alternatives.
Throughout the meeting he tried to sound intimidating as if we are doing something wrong and HMRC is going to catch us and kept on recommending some umbrella company scheme (I am sure he is a part of it). I really disliked the idea of the umbrella solution (some offshore based , you have no control over your hard earned own money).
My policy is that if my work genuienly comes under IR35, then I would pay the tax fully cause that is fair enough. But if it doesn't then I have every right to keep my hard earned money in a fair way. I don't want to take any shortcuts and end up in a mess.
What to look for in choosing an accountant for IT contractors? What role does an accountant play when an enquiry comes up? Does anyone have any recommendations for such accountants in Reading area?
New to this forum. I really appreciate the great posts and support here. I started my own ltd company and started my project (in IT) 2 weeks ago. We went to an accountant nearby and I don't think that he is the right person. Here is what happened when we met him a couple of days ago for the first time,
He looked at the contract, literally flicked through pages in less than 5 mins and declared that IR35 will be a problem.
He asked us a couple of questions, for example, "the right to do work at your own time and at your own pace". We tried to explain to him that when you are an IT contractor working on a project funded for say 3 months, you have to go and do the work in that time period, but you can't go on extending things at your own pace. You have to be at the client's place and do office hours for several reasons such as secured access to the data, to facilitate exchange of information between different groups and building security constraints. I told him that depending on the nature of work, the constraints could be different and so would the IR35 conditions be. He didn't listen to us, instead, compared this to say a plumber's work, which is a different case altogether, and used the same yardstick to judge our scenario and insisted that IR35 would be a problem for us and we should look for alternatives.
Throughout the meeting he tried to sound intimidating as if we are doing something wrong and HMRC is going to catch us and kept on recommending some umbrella company scheme (I am sure he is a part of it). I really disliked the idea of the umbrella solution (some offshore based , you have no control over your hard earned own money).
My policy is that if my work genuienly comes under IR35, then I would pay the tax fully cause that is fair enough. But if it doesn't then I have every right to keep my hard earned money in a fair way. I don't want to take any shortcuts and end up in a mess.
What to look for in choosing an accountant for IT contractors? What role does an accountant play when an enquiry comes up? Does anyone have any recommendations for such accountants in Reading area?
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