Dodgy Accountant and corporation Tax

[BolshieBastard]

Two sides to every story. I do notice however, the OP has been very conservative with the facts. If someone contacts you and say they made a mistake, please pay the money back, you'd ask why, what was the mistake and can I see documentary proof (well I would!).

Neither do you just decide to 'ignore' subsequent requests.

Yes, the accountant could be trying something on but neither do you 'ignore' requests for repayment.

And as for closing company down but leaving the company's bank account open with money in it, oh deary, deary me. Someone could be in for a very rude awakening.

[jmo21]

No, we do not owe our accountant any money at all. We pay him his man hours dealing with our yearly accounts. That is one thing we have always done.

My partner has a well paid job, so has no need to avoid any payments to our accountant that are deemed necessary as a company goes.

Trailanderror

so answer my other question then:

Did you ask "why have HMRC sent you (the accountant) a cheque in our old co name, and why do you expect me to pay this money to you".

You are not telling the whole story for some reason.

[SueEllen]

so answer my other question then:

Did you ask "why have HMRC sent you (the accountant) a cheque in our old co name, and why do you expect me to pay this money to you".

They may have simply over paid their Corporation tax and VAT.

While contractoruk mainly deals with IT contractors, people from other sectors who are contractors come across these forums.

You are not telling the whole story for some reason.

I suspect you will find a more detailed post if you search on other accountancy/business/money forums and the poster can't be bothered to retype what they put. Lots of people are unaware of using copy and paste.

Generally people end up with similar answers regardless of how many forums they post on.

[jmo21]

They may have simply over paid their Corporation tax and VAT.

there are a number of things they "may" have done, but he hasn't told us whether he asked the accountant.

He simply didn't give the money back, supposedly because the accountant just demanded money?

[trailanderror]

Thank you for your replies everyone

Still looking into matters at the moment

Will let you know what is done asap

Trailanderror

[NimbleJackAccounting]

My two pennies worth.

This comes down to ensuring that your accountant is ACA or ACCA qualified.

Would you get a heart operation from a unqualified doctor?

Do your research as Wanderer said earlier in the post.

[Greg@CapitalCity]

This comes down to ensuring that your accountant is ACA or ACCA qualified.

I am not sure this is correct. Darren Upton was ACCA, and there are plenty of hopeless (but qualified) heart surgeons in the world. Sometimes people are just dishonest, and sometimes bad things happen to good people.

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

This comes down to ensuring that your accountant is ACA or ACCA qualified.

Nonsense. Certainly it helps but there are many, many well qualified chancers in all walks of life. And its specious to suggest that honesty is the sole preserve of the qualified.

[BlasterBates]

I read the original post.

Firstly a cheque was received.

I received the cheque next day to my home address, and was happily surprised at the amount that it showed.

Next the accountant rings up and says it was a mistake

Shortly after, my Accountant rang me up to say that he had made an administrative error on his PC. He said that the cheque belonged to him, and that we should send it back to him straight away.

This was before the cheque was cashed in. At this point his advice should have been heeded. This is clearly not money laundering as the accountant tried to stop the cheque being cashed.

However ....

my partner and I decided to ignore what our Accountant asked of us with the cheque, as it was payable to us

So they cashed the cheque.

My advice would be pay that money back to the accountant. If someone transfers money by mistake into your account you are obliged to pay it back.

Now whether a cash rebate is due from HMRC is another matter. I wouldn´t see any problem in then getting that from the accountant once it would be clear, assuming that the accountant had received it.

[Lockhouse]

Not read the thread but here's my story.

My first ever accountant got closed down for fraud. This was in the late 1980's. I'd only just started contracting and was very green. I went round to my accountant's office after not being able to get in touch for a couple of months and apparently he'd been raided by the DTI (as it was then) and taken away in handcuffs. He ended up in chokey.

I got a new accountant to go through my books and it transpired that my company had been closed down and struck off at Companies House six months earlier. I was totally oblivious as my accountant had a) not been forwarding my post b) not been completing my returns c) taking all my money. You live and learn.