Reply to: Why I don't use an accountant....

[craig1]

I think it all depends on the type of person you are. If you're a receipts in shoebox and look at it once a quarter/year type then maybe doing it yourself isn't for you.

I do my accounting every Friday night. When I was working in London, it was my job on the train, now I'm driving in it's a job at night before I turn my work head off. I get my invoices out, expenses reconciled, bank accounts reconciled and so on to the point that if someone asked me to do my accounts immediately then I'd be in a fairly good position to just rattle them off. I've also made it easy for myself with my LLP being the primary source of personal income meaning all I need to report is my profits and profit distribution then do the rest through a very simple SA form.

I think good contractor accountants are worth every penny if you're not 100% sure what you're doing and aren't confident of taking on HMRC's helpdesks for quality information.

[ContrataxLtd]

Personally I think it's easier to check someone else's work rather than do the whole thing yourself. But then I also wouldn't even think about servicing my own car or building my own shed. Each to their own

Building a shed is easy In all honesty though, I completely agree, everything I've read so far are reasons for grilling your accountant when you don't understand something rather than not using an accountant completely. Unless you want to spend hours each year researching and keeping on top of tax law!

Martin

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

I'm a strong advocate for doing your own research and trying to understand as much as possible because as everybody has already said, its ultimately your responsibility. Knowing and understanding these things can be a big advantage and there is nothing wrong with questioning your accountant if you use one (that said, no matter how many times I try I still don't understand deferred tax provisions!).

I also think if your circumstances are simple you can mostly go it alone but I would still pay an accountant to do my end of year returns and accounts even if I was comfortable doing my own monthly bookkeeping and accounting (which is how I did it for quite a while).

Ultimately though, if you go it alone, you should add up the amount of time spent on doing it yourself, times it by your day rate and then compare to the accountants fees. I think we all know what will be cheaper.

[Clare@InTouch]

I agree with everything, but they're not reasons not to use an accountant.

Agreed - they are reasons to poke us with a stick to get us to justify what we're telling you is correct before you sign off on documents and submissions.

If you do away with us entirely and do it yourself you are no worse off when it comes to the responsibility part, but it means you have to do the research and updating of tax knowledge yourself rather than paying someone else and then just sanity checking what they've told you. You also have to be aware of the interactions between tax laws, and pay enough attention to know of the odd little quirks that only those that study tax would probably be aware of.

Personally I think it's easier to check someone else's work rather than do the whole thing yourself. But then I also wouldn't even think about servicing my own car or building my own shed. Each to their own

[RickRow]

I agree with everything, but they're not reasons not to use an accountant.

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

iXBRL?

Yes, something like that. I had a 50:50 chance of getting it wrong **ashamed face**

[GazCol]

Agree in part.

The number of people who don't have a basic grasp on the mechanics of their own business from a legal and tax point of view often concerns me. I have email thread going with someone at present, retired professional, runs a B&S, set up a consultancy company on side, won't pay an accounting fee for it, "Too small" and clearly is in a pickle over dividends / salary - the basics - but resents being told, in the context of his personal tax return which we do, that he needs to sort things out. Its a disaster waiting to happen.

However, knowing it all isn't always efficient. I hire IT and telecoms professionals to make things work in my office, its not my skill, and I don't want to learn it. I know roughly what everything in the server room does, I know the difference between a router and a DP, and know enough to recognise BS (eg BT engineer this week: your ADSL isn't working because there is an alarm line on the circuit. Me: try again its been there 12 years and worked till last week).

I'd rather pay someone who knows what they are doing with IT/telecoms to do their bt, so I can do my job with relative e3ase, rather than being mistress of everything.

I'd respectfully suggest it works the other way. Yes, understand the detail of tax and legalities, but the niceties of the format of full accounts v abbreviated accounts, and the content of an iBrxl submission: leave it with people who do it day in day out.

iXBRL?

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

Bugger the accountants.

Thanks! There's a film in there I think

I dread to think of the BBFC classification for it. Straight to adult channel I suspect. That or terminal boredom.

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

Agree in part.

The number of people who don't have a basic grasp on the mechanics of their own business from a legal and tax point of view often concerns me. I have email thread going with someone at present, retired professional, runs a B&S, set up a consultancy company on side, won't pay an accounting fee for it, "Too small" and clearly is in a pickle over dividends / salary - the basics - but resents being told, in the context of his personal tax return which we do, that he needs to sort things out. Its a disaster waiting to happen.

However, knowing it all isn't always efficient. I hire IT and telecoms professionals to make things work in my office, its not my skill, and I don't want to learn it. I know roughly what everything in the server room does, I know the difference between a router and a DP, and know enough to recognise BS (eg BT engineer this week: your ADSL isn't working because there is an alarm line on the circuit. Me: try again its been there 12 years and worked till last week).

I'd rather pay someone who knows what they are doing with IT/telecoms to do their bt, so I can do my job with relative e3ase, rather than being mistress of everything.

I'd respectfully suggest it works the other way. Yes, understand the detail of tax and legalities, but the niceties of the format of full accounts v abbreviated accounts, and the content of an iBrxl submission: leave it with people who do it day in day out.

[NickNick]

Two Montpelier users hit with £23,000 in tax fines :: Contractor UK

"Bernard Litman and Ann Newall, who were husband and wife when they used the Isle of Man firm’s scheme..."

Got to wonder if the reason that their marital status is written in the past tense is down to this investigation, and also to feel sorry for them over what they went through.

[d000hg]

I married a management accountant, but I'll still be using a contractor specialist. If there's one thing I've learned from hanging around here and reading (what feels like) half the Internet it's that I'm going to need all the help I can get to both make my company tax efficient and stay whiter than white.

Not really, it's very simple.

[vwdan]

I married a management accountant, but I'll still be using a contractor specialist. If there's one thing I've learned from hanging around here and reading (what feels like) half the Internet it's that I'm going to need all the help I can get to both make my company tax efficient and stay whiter than white.

[Brussels Slumdog]

In Belgium I use a Belgian branch of an international Tax consultancy to complete my tax return and privide advice on double taxation agreements as I always contact in more than one country per year. All an accountant can do is prepare financial statements so you need a tax expert.

[ASB]

I think too many people on here take their accounts advice as law, rather than what it is advice, ultimately you will always be responsible for yours and your LtdCo's tax affairs.

A friend of mine works for a practice which has a lot of individual SA clients. She spends her time doing tax returns and filing them. So she slowly but surely drags the info out of them, collates, and eventually files. She send it to the client for review. Most of them say "I don't understand it". She spends days trying to expain, but in general they really aren't interested.

In my case I took the shoebox approach. Whenever he said "sign this" I did. Pay this "I did". At the time I couldn't read a set accounts or similar, also dividends attracted ACT. (Prior to divis it was all salary due to the investment income surcharge)

He was so good that I never had to pay anything beyond the ACT. Result.

It was a formal audit that was required in those days too.

Anyway I got a letter. He'd neglected to mention that there was CT due, just kind of assumed I knew. It was in the books racking up year on year

The letter arrived from a nice HMIT, just before the then 6 year deadline, enquiring if I would mind awfully sending them a cheque for the accumulated liabilities of something in the order of 50k......

That was when I resolved to get a bit more up to speed.

[GB9]

Bugger the accountants.

Thanks! There's a film in there I think