Quiet year - tax losses

[Robbyell]

Thanks JB3000 - excellent reply - the kind of thing I'd expected when I posted - your personal experience, a few things to watch for, a friendly helping hand. Yourself and Snarf get "Top Poster of the Year"; if you're cursing your bad luck that this only gives you 3 more days of Top Doggery, well, my Financial Year ends March, so have another 90 days of privileges!

My final comment on this would I guess be that the question and answer weren't rocket science and don't need an accountant to answer. I tell you what: it's a good job that accountants are honest enough not to charge you for stuff you could do yourself, or there'd be massive overcharging and a lot of us would feel proper idiots... Imagine!

[SlipTheJab]

Weren't not wasn't, FFS, this is a Professional Forum!🔧🌞

ennit!

[Scruff]

Weren't not wasn't, FFS, this is a Professional Forum!🔧🌞

[JB3000]

Hi all – just doing my accounts and CT600 and note that I didn’t invoice anything in the period (1/4/14 – 31/3/15). I’ve paid myself wages and have some other minor expenses, which give me a loss of c£10k, and a potential tax reclaim of c£2k at my usual rate of 20%. What are my options here as regards reclaim (carry forward / carry back?), and am I barking up the wrong (Xmas) tree?!

Thanks!


Rob

Carry back the loss and claim the corporation tax refund- just because you wasn't invoicing doesn't mean you wasn't working (you would have probably been looking for work, applying to work, going for 1st/2nd interviews, chasing up recruiters, advertising on linkedin/job boards, dealing with HMRC, etc) and as such deserved to be paid a salary. Making a loss is all part of being in business- not every business will make a profit in every single year that it operates (just ask tesco).

There are a lot of tulip heads on this forum who for some reason who feel compelled to shriek "ask your accountant". Just ignore them- as you have probably noticed they probably have lots of unresolved personal issues.

[SimonMac]

Well let's just close the accountancy forum, given the responses above we might as well get rid of it because not everyone is a qualified accountant.

You really wanna happen when a post like this moved to General

[cojak]

And a Merry Christmas to you too.

[Snarf]

Well let's just close the accountancy forum, given the responses above we might as well get rid of it because not everyone is a qualified accountant.

[SueEllen]

Agree.
If you're not going to bother with a useful response don't bother.

It's very unlikley the guys accountant is working because its
A. Sunday.
B. Xmas

It's a contractors forum.
Specifically its the FINANCE section of the contractors forum, this is absolutely the right place to ask.

I would however suggest that you don't actually follow the advice on here to the letter. Some members are monumental bell ends.

The poster posted on 22nd December so there was still time for them to contact their accountant right up to Christmas Eve, considering mine send me my yearly accounts then and a few other accountants who regularly post on here were working all up to midday Christmas Eve.

One of the reasons you get told to ask your accountant first is they are the professional you pay to do your books and they should always be your first port of call.

The advice here is free and since the few posters who are accountants, debt collectors etc are posting in their free time don't expect an immediate response or a response at all.

[NotAllThere]

It's come up as "tulip" for some reason - I actually typed "t ulip" - as in, "piece of t ulip".

It comes up as tulip because there is a swear filter in place. Please do not bypass the swear filter at all, don't swear in the professional forums, and probably best not to post in the professional forums after eating port and brandy mince pies...

After a while, you'll see the word tulip and automatically un-swear-filter it...

S...My - again, admittedly - over-the-top comment about the forum's quality is predicated on the 402 (four-hundred and two - nearly 500!) views my post's had, against its one measly (and pi ss-poor) response. What the heckety's going on here????!!!!

What's going on is that 402 people read your post and, since we outsource all our accountancy type work, didn't know the answer, so didn't respond. There are accountant-type people who post here, but they've probably drunk themselves insensible at the awful prospect of having to do client's end-of-year accounts - maybe next week?

[SimonMac]

Quiet year - tax losses

Ok serious answer, as we have to be professional (not helpful, remember that).

99% of the people on here are IT contractors, we are specialists in a certain area, be it development, project management or selling sleds, very few of us on here are accountants.

Like the clients that hire us for our subject matter expertise in our chosen field, the majority of people on the site chose to engage accountants for the exact same reason, so if there is a question best answered by a member of a professional accountancy body the first point of call should always be them.

Of the 100 people who ask their accountant a question, 99 are given a satisfactory answer, the one then come here to a second opinion its usually because the answer given to them is most likely not the one they wanted to hear, so were hoping for a second uninformed opinion that matches their expectations.

If all else fails just ******* google it

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Co...m=119&ie=UTF-8

So basically you have two options you can carry it forward or carry it back, I would suggest your accountant would be ideally placed to advise you on which is best for you

[Robbyell]

Agree.
If you're not going to bother with a useful response don't bother.

It's very unlikley the guys accountant is working because its
A. Sunday.
B. Xmas

It's a contractors forum.
Specifically its the FINANCE section of the contractors forum, this is absolutely the right place to ask.

I would however suggest that you don't actually follow the advice on here to the letter. Some members are monumental bell ends.

Snarf - thanks - after my rather intemperate blowout (this may be the Asda Extra Special mince pies I reckon, which I later discovered to have both port AND brandy in them) you've restored my faith in humankind.

I rather imagined that this would be a place where we can share, in a friendly and helpful manner, our experiences in this sometimes testing world of owning our own businesses. No-one's hopefully going to sue anyone if they offer their experiences up for advice and help, and of course, no-one's just going to use the advice given without musing on it first. Advice to ask your accountant seems to me to undermine what tiny value the OP's point had - it's your OWN responsibility to get legal returns right, so trying to understand this stuff oneself, rather than hide behind an accountant, seems to me to be a sensible way of proceeding. My question was deliberately naive and general so as to invite a range of views so that I could then make up my own mind on things. My - again, admittedly - over-the-top comment about the forum's quality is predicated on the 402 (four-hundred and two - nearly 500!) views my post's had, against its one measly (and pi ss-poor) response. What the heckety's going on here????!!!!

Thanks again - seasons greetings to you and all thinkers on the forum.

[Snarf]

Yeah, I keep seeing this kind of response on various threads. What a piece of tulip forum this is, and you are.

Agree.
If you're not going to bother with a useful response don't bother.

It's very unlikley the guys accountant is working because its
A. Sunday.
B. Xmas

It's a contractors forum.
Specifically its the FINANCE section of the contractors forum, this is absolutely the right place to ask.

I would however suggest that you don't actually follow the advice on here to the letter. Some members are monumental bell ends.

[Robbyell]

What does your accountant say?

Yeah, I keep seeing this kind of response on various threads. What a piece of tulip forum this is, and you are.

Yeah, I keep seeing this kind of response on various threads. What a piece of tulip forum this is, and you are.

It's come up as "tulip" for some reason - I actually typed "t ulip" - as in, "piece of t ulip".

[NibblyPig]

What does your accountant say?

[Robbyell]

Hi all – just doing my accounts and CT600 and note that I didn’t invoice anything in the period (1/4/14 – 31/3/15). I’ve paid myself wages and have some other minor expenses, which give me a loss of c£10k, and a potential tax reclaim of c£2k at my usual rate of 20%. What are my options here as regards reclaim (carry forward / carry back?), and am I barking up the wrong (Xmas) tree?!

Thanks!


Rob