Churchill Knight & Boox clients being investigated as Managed Service Companies

[FreelanceGuy]

Hi all,

i've just joined after discovering the thread, and like a good proportion of you in this thread, Boox was the assigned accountant for my LTD for many years until recently.

Back in April, i received the initial letter of an MSC determination for 2017/18, and then to counter the initial determination for that period, Boox submitted an overpayment claim on behalf of the LTD in May for that period.

And now, as of this morning i've received more "negligent and highly baseless" determinations for 2018/19 and 2019/20, and on top that, also including a separate supposedly bumper unpaid NI tax determination too.

They even threatened me with interests to be accrued if determinations left unpaid, and they even admittedly mentioned they have still yet get the correct and more proper financial data from Boox.. and will most likely recalculate the determinations. All this is rather farcical, that's just in itself unethical from an government authority.

They are really upping the threats here to scare us into submission, paying them the estimated determination based on (i think) annual turnovers alone, ignoring CT and DT already paid.

I'll try to get in touch with Boox on Monday, as it has been a long while since i heard any progress.

But is there a way at least to request the interest penalties to be postponed?

Or, am i just better off having David Kirk appeal for me instead, as i've heard from others Boox are unresponsive these days??

What are your opinions on next steps?

[Fred Bloggs]

I don't get why a custom built portal is any worse than an off the shelf portal. They both did the same thing

Not really. One is fully portable and the cloud application is owned by a UK bank completely independently of the clients or the accountancy practises. The application is the same irrespective of who opens the account. It can be used as a DIY book keeping solution with full reporting and statutory filing. A nominated accountant may have as much or as little access as the account holder decides. The end client has a free choice of accountant and how much or how little an accountant is involved. (I chose full DIY).

The other solution is unique and custom developed for one accounting practise. There is no way to use the portal unless you pay a monthly subscription to the accountant. End user access is controlled by the accountant. It has zero portability with the responsibility for it resting solely with the accountant who paid for it to be developed. The accountant gives the end client access to the portal. See where this is going?

(Personally, I always suspected customised accountant portals were a very bad idea even before it became fully clear why.)

[ExLuninKiwi]

So…portability? What if there was no portal at all and accounting was done by your accountant on paper or an excel spreadsheet? Would that be as portable? You could literally just print out reports from Boox’s portal if you needed to extract the information to pass on to a new accountant etc.

In my opinion, Boox just tried to make it easier for the non-accountant to understand a companies financial position and invoice, expense, and reconcile transactions. They still sent emails with any information (I.e. any approvals, eoy accounts, VAT returns etc).

The fact the portal was owned by an accountancy group is just splitting hairs imho. It was just a more user friendly interface and made information more readily available. Surely you don’t think this is why they’re doing all this?!

[DealorNoDeal]

They even threatened me with interests to be accrued if determinations left unpaid, and they even admittedly mentioned they have still yet get the correct and more proper financial data from Boox.. and will most likely recalculate the determinations. All this is rather farcical, that's just in itself unethical from an government authority.

It's not really a threat as such. They are statutorily required (ie. in law) to charge interest on any tax or NI paid late. For example, if the final outcome is that you are found to have underpaid tax/NI for 2017/18, then you will be charged interest on the underpayment from 2017 until you pay the tax/NI.[/quote]

But is there a way at least to request the interest penalties to be postponed?

The only way to stop interest continuing to accrue, is to make a Payment on Account. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about the 5 years of interest that has already accrued since 2017, although at least the interest rate was low for most of that period.

[Sijo]

So…portability? What if there was no portal at all and accounting was done by your accountant on paper or an excel spreadsheet? Would that be as portable? You could literally just print out reports from Boox’s portal if you needed to extract the information to pass on to a new accountant etc.

In my opinion, Boox just tried to make it easier for the non-accountant to understand a companies financial position and invoice, expense, and reconcile transactions. They still sent emails with any information (I.e. any approvals, eoy accounts, VAT returns etc).

The fact the portal was owned by an accountancy group is just splitting hairs imho. It was just a more user friendly interface and made information more readily available. Surely you don’t think this is why they’re doing all this?!

On the topic of portability. I was with Boox till 2020 and then I moved to a high street accountant. He was able to get all the required data from Boox. And also there was an option to export all the transactions till date from the portal to an excel sheet. So I had exported all the transactions before I left them . I never found any issues on the portability factor as such.

[Lotok]

I'll try to get in touch with Boox on Monday, as it has been a long while since i heard any progress.

Good luck with THAT.

[mudskipper]

Array

Not really. One is fully portable and the cloud application is owned by a UK bank completely independently of the clients or the accountancy practises. The application is the same irrespective of who opens the account. It can be used as a DIY book keeping solution with full reporting and statutory filing. A nominated accountant may have as much or as little access as the account holder decides. The end client has a free choice of accountant and how much or how little an accountant is involved. (I chose full DIY).

The other solution is unique and custom developed for one accounting practise. There is no way to use the portal unless you pay a monthly subscription to the accountant. End user access is controlled by the accountant. It has zero portability with the responsibility for it resting solely with the accountant who paid for it to be developed. The accountant gives the end client access to the portal. See where this is going?

(Personally, I always suspected customised accountant portals were a very bad idea even before it became fully clear why.)

It depends. Many accountants who supply freeagent as part of their offering have a branded landing/login page for freeagent, and specify which bits their client has access to. The accountant often controls the account and supplies the client with access. Of course it varies from accountant to accountant.

[jamesbrown]

It's not a bespoke portal per se that is a problem, it's what it might imply about the delivery of a packaged product whereby certain defaults are applied, perhaps across a subset of clients. This begins to look like a "solution". In other words, it's another hook for HMRC to consider when prioritising. When the time comes, the details will matter because, as noted above, a bespoke portal could be more or less hands on (or off) than a more generic bookkeeping tool that is configured by an accountant.

That said, in my experience, the bespoke portals do tend to make assumptions and adopt defaults that are more at risk of being deemed a "solution" of some kind. I think the risk is particularly high if those defaults are adopted differently for different groups of clients, like those with a special level of service agreement, the most expensive of which is perhaps even advertised as "hands off" (). As an individual client, you won't necessarily know how the accountant has approached this across their client base more generally. With generic bookkeeping tools, it's more likely that the accountant provides a generic and high level of access across all clients (so that clients set salaries, deal with expenses etc.), but there may be exceptions.

In other words, I don't think "Xero" or "FreeAgent" guarantees you're safe, especially if you're still with a hand-holdy accountant, but there is likely to be some (perhaps strong) correlation between accountants that offer bespoke portals and the level of hand-holding provided.

In other words, an accountant that offers several service levels delivered through a bespoke portal is a very bad sign.

[jamesbrown]

And by implication, of course, an accountant that provides a single service level through a generic bookkeeping tool that adopts the same (high) level of access for all clients will be a much lower risk. Followed by an accountant used for periodic returns only as a lower risk still. Followed by doing the accountancy yourself as least/zero risk.

[ExLuninKiwi]

In the case of Boox, there was not two levels of service. There was a ‘small business’ cost for 1-2 people, then a larger business cost for more than that. No premium service or anything though. Same as Xero if we’re talking about the platform, and same as most accountants of we’re talking about the cost structure for the accounting. It just corellates to the amount of work the accountant has to do and makes the payment options easier for the customer!