SJD Parties like it's 1999

[Mr.Whippy]

OK, but you might save a whole £500 a year on a key service that presumably works fine as it is by replacing it with one that you don't know. Your call but I totally fail to see the point.

My & MyCo's tax affairs are pretty straightforward, so I don't feel that £110+vat/month is good value for me. Yes, I'm effectively paying for a yearly service in installments etc and a good accountant should save me money, I know all this. But because my tax affairs are so straightforward I'm not sure they save me anywhere near what they're charging.

SJD are not proactive at all in my experience, they've never called me to say "oh we think you should be doing this that and the other" it's always down to me to ask them after I see things on here or the web. I think they should also be keeping me up to date with any changes to legislation etc, which may or may not affect me and MyCo. But they don't.. take ESC-C16 for example, not a word from them to me about it. Not that it matters as I'm not thinking of winding up MyCo but that's not the point.

There's also been the recent discussion here about income shifting and Daniel from SJD posting on here that they as a company don't recommend it to their clients. Yet I was advised that I should be doing this by SJD and also paying my non-working wife a low salary. Despite me expressing my concerns that she wouldn't do any work to justify the salary they still said I should go ahead and do it. So it's also the lack of consistency that is causing concern, because I may have acted on other advice from them which other offices don't recommend.

Also, their site says £105+VAT and they're putting mine up to £110+VAT... as k2p2 asked, do they charge different clients different amounts? If so, why am I paying more than others for such simple accounts?

[Mr.Whippy]

Good accountants sell not just service to do something but also peace of mind

See above post, getting conflicting answers re: incoming shifting from two SJD accountants does not give me peace of mind.

[AtW]

See above post, getting conflicting answers re: incoming shifting from two SJD accountants does not give me peace of mind.

I don't know exactly what they told you, but certain areas of tax affairs are not obvious it's not possible to outsource risk of doing something to whoever gives their advice/opinion about it. If you do not think you are getting good advice then by all means look for another place which can give you better service.

This is very different issue though compared with fairly modest increase in prices - I don't use SJD and never did (though considered at some point in the past).

[northernladuk]

See above post, getting conflicting answers re: incoming shifting from two SJD accountants does not give me peace of mind.

If there was a straight answer the basic contracting guides would say 1) Do/Don't do this. As it is they don't as it is a very wooly and opinion based area. We wouldn't discuss it to the lengths we did on here if it was that easy. You will get accountants (am talking individuals here) that err on the side of caution, shoot from the hip, don't know any better or have had experience. Each will give different advice.

[Mr.Whippy]

If there was a straight answer the basic contracting guides would say 1) Do/Don't do this. As it is they don't as it is a very wooly and opinion based area. We wouldn't discuss it to the lengths we did on here if it was that easy. You will get accountants (am talking individuals here) that err on the side of caution, shoot from the hip, don't know any better or have had experience. Each will give different advice.

I know there is never a straight yes/no, do/don't answer to everything.

I'm not talking about an individuals opinion though, This thread with posts from Daniel says that SJD as a company have a policy of not promoting/advising splitting shares, which contradicts the advice that was given by another employee of SJD, which would seemingly go against this policy.

[AtW]

which contradicts the advice that was given by another employee of SJD, which would seemingly go against this policy.

Did you contact SJD in the first place about it?

[Mr.Whippy]

Did you contact SJD in the first place about it?

No. Because the advice was given quite a few months before the posts and I'd decided not to go with it anyway.

[malvolio]

No. Because the advice was given quite a few months before the posts and I'd decided not to go with it anyway.

QED. It's advice. It's up to you what you do with it. You're the director, not SJD.

Acountants are highly risk averse on behalf of their clients, it's what they do. The time to complain is when they say you can't do something without explaining precisely why.

[Mr.Whippy]

QED. It's advice. It's up to you what you do with it. You're the director, not SJD.

Don't you think I already know this ffs.... what I'm saying is that the advice I was given by an SJD employee goes against their policy of not recommending income splitting.

If a company has a policy of something then an employee should not be giving out advice that goes against that.

Seeing that there has been conflicting answers on the same subject that does not give me the peace of mind that AtW mentioned, which in turn doesn't make me think they are worth the new, higher fee.

[AtW]

No. Because the advice was given quite a few months before the posts and I'd decided not to go with it anyway.

I think it's a good idea to raise an issue with the company first before posting it on public forums - you have not given them chance to look at the facts and respond to it.