Advice on winding down contracting activities

[Maslins]

Can I ask what the work undertaken in dormancy would actually be?
There is no income, so no invoices. There are no employees any more, so no expenses. I would be de-registered from PAYE and VAT, so no more of that to do. The accountant does not provide insurance - I have a separate contract for that.
£60 plus VAT seems steep for submitting a couple of (mostly blank) forms once a year, which is what their task appears to be?

One thing that's unclear is whether the £60+VAT is per month or per year. I'm guessing Jessica's assumed it's per year, in which case yes, that sounded very cheap. If it's per month, then potentially is a bit steep. However the work only really goes down once the company's fully dormant with VAT/PAYE deregistered and a whole year of inactivity has happened (so company accounts for full year can be £nil).

We've had a few clients who were disappointed that we couldn't slash our fee if they stop trading for a few months...that doesn't realistically make any difference to our workload.

[ike2112]

One thing that's unclear is whether the £60+VAT is per month or per year. I'm guessing Jessica's assumed it's per year, in which case yes, that sounded very cheap. If it's per month, then potentially is a bit steep. However the work only really goes down once the company's fully dormant with VAT/PAYE deregistered and a whole year of inactivity has happened (so company accounts for full year can be £nil).

We've had a few clients who were disappointed that we couldn't slash our fee if they stop trading for a few months...that doesn't realistically make any difference to our workload.

It's per month.

And I have asked them to extend the company year to end of July now. So there will be no trading in the next year (which will now run August 2013 to July 2014). All that is left for me to do is pay my liabilities and get the rest of the cash out. Paying an accountant another £850+ this year and beyond seems ridiculous to me, but then I've proven I don't really understand these things!

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

Yes, I was suggesting £120 a year - not £60 a month!

What has to be done in dormancy? It varies, but simple annual accounts, any tax stuff that comes through despite de-registration, and often queries about restarting and so on. At the end of day there is a basic cost in firing the servers up and running a business, so something has to be charged if people want an accountant to call on.