[8weekly]

As a sole trader, if you have done it yourself for four years, stick with it. I seriously doubt he'll find £2,000 worth of expenses which is what it would take to break even.

If you pay the accountant £360, you're up if he finds you extra claimable expenses of £361.

Vin

£361 in extra claimable expenses will save you around £80, why do people not understand what tax deductible actually means.

You are, of course, completely correct.  My mistake.

Vin

Because you are usually / often right I spent about 15 minutes trying to get my head around why I was wrong until I read Dry Clean's post. That's 15 minutes I won't get back. 

[Tosh]

Well, you will, sort of.


You can offset those lost 15 minutes as a business expense and reclaim 20% of them back against tax. So you'll gain an extra 3 minutes, unless you're earnings progress in to the 40% tax bracket, in which case you'll get 6 minutes back. Not bad. Unless you consider it a fair exchange for having wasted 15 minutes of your time reading one of SeanK's posts who is now trading as DryClean. Assuming he's informed HMRC of this change in his operating setup. In which case you'll probably find any receipts from DryClean for your wasted time as being as useless as the paper they're written on as you won't be able to present them as operating costs. Ask your accountant. Or write it off as a 'Bad Debt'.

[Smudger]

as a sole trader under the vat threshold i would say an accountant is unnecessary - its just a matter of income and expenditure
those accountants charging that amount barely loom at your books let alone spend hours going through it with a fine tooth comb
and at the end of the day YOU sign that its all correct - any errors and investigations are down to YOU that includes the 1000's of pounds your accountant will now charge dealing with the tax man - join the FSB and use there protection insurance

once you get to the VAT or have staff - van leasing - property rented/brought then the accountant is invaluable at choosing the option that gives you the smallest tax liability

Darran

[P @ F]

^^^ What Barry said , probably the case for me , not that i ever did my returns in the first place , reason being that i dont understsand  them anyway , cant be arsed , plus when i started up i needed a mortgage and was not even getting considered as i did not have an accountant let alone 3 years worth of figures to go on , he made it possible and that is that , i will keep giving him £252 a year not to stress , whats £252 anyway ?
1 £20 house a month thats all !

[p1w1]

^^^ What Barry said , probably the case for me , not that i ever did my returns in the first place , reason being that i dont understsand  them anyway , cant be arsed , plus when i started up i needed a mortgage and was not even getting considered as i did not have an accountant let alone 3 years worth of figures to go on , he made it possible and that is that , i will keep giving him £252 a year not to stress , whats £252 anyway ?
1 £20 house a month thats all !

£240  see why you have your accountant    agree with what you say same reason for me really just cant be bothered doing it myself.

[P @ F]

Thinking about it , if you spin it , and consider that if our custies thought to themselves , hey its only 30 minutes a month to clean my own windows i will save £20 a month , why dont they , i will tell you why , cos they cant be fooked to end of .
If they did then we would all be fooked 

[P @ F]

^^^ What Barry said , probably the case for me , not that i ever did my returns in the first place , reason being that i dont understsand  them anyway , cant be arsed , plus when i started up i needed a mortgage and was not even getting considered as i did not have an accountant let alone 3 years worth of figures to go on , he made it possible and that is that , i will keep giving him £252 a year not to stress , whats £252 anyway ?
1 £20 house a month thats all !

£240  see why you have your accountant    agree with what you say same reason for me really just cant be bothered doing it myself.

I just knew i would get that ......  ....... I should have put £21 , but im a rounding down kinda guy , i like to offer a bit of value , plus i would have to carry a lot more £1 coins and again i cant be fooked       

[p1w1]

^^^ What Barry said , probably the case for me , not that i ever did my returns in the first place , reason being that i dont understsand  them anyway , cant be arsed , plus when i started up i needed a mortgage and was not even getting considered as i did not have an accountant let alone 3 years worth of figures to go on , he made it possible and that is that , i will keep giving him £252 a year not to stress , whats £252 anyway ?
1 £20 house a month thats all !

£240  see why you have your accountant    agree with what you say same reason for me really just cant be bothered doing it myself.

I just knew i would get that ......  ....... I should have put £21 , but im a rounding down kinda guy , i like to offer a bit of value , plus i would have to carry a lot more £1 coins and again i cant be fooked       

sorry couldn't resist, it is CIU after all you should know better 

[P @ F]

I expect no more , you are but lowly window cleaners , no prospects , no aspirations , just beer tokens 

[Tom White]

just cant be bothered doing it myself.

You will have to provide your income and expenditure; keeping track of that is the 'work'.

You've already bothered!

[Arnold Palmer]

If you're a straight forward 'i earn this and spend this' kind of person then yes. Hiring an accountant is pointless. If you own, or want to own property, if you employ, or if you have any complexity within your business then employ an accountant. Even if you think everything you do is easy, speak to one (or two) anyway. Tax is complex and even if you think you know everything about it, you probably don't. If you did you'd be charging £100 an hour and you'd be working behind a desk.

[8weekly]

If you're a straight forward 'i earn this and spend this' kind of person then yes. Hiring an accountant is pointless. If you own, or want to own property, if you employ, or if you have any complexity within your business then employ an accountant. Even if you think everything you do is easy, speak to one (or two) anyway. Tax is complex and even if you think you know everything about it, you probably don't. If you did you'd be charging £100 an hour and you'd be working behind a desk.

If you go limited I think it's obligatory isn't it as you have to submit accounts to Companies House. I have an accountant now but as a sole trader I didn't bother. It's just a tax return really and I've always done my own.

As Tosh said, you already have the data and if you use Aworka, the business page is a two minute job. I'll do mine and the wife's personal tax returns this year.

[Tom-01]

If you're a straight forward 'i earn this and spend this' kind of person then yes. Hiring an accountant is pointless. If you own, or want to own property, if you employ, or if you have any complexity within your business then employ an accountant. Even if you think everything you do is easy, speak to one (or two) anyway. Tax is complex and even if you think you know everything about it, you probably don't. If you did you'd be charging £100 an hour and you'd be working behind a desk.

I'd rather earn that cleaning windows than sat behind a desk

[Tom-01]

If you're a straight forward 'i earn this and spend this' kind of person then yes. Hiring an accountant is pointless. If you own, or want to own property, if you employ, or if you have any complexity within your business then employ an accountant. Even if you think everything you do is easy, speak to one (or two) anyway. Tax is complex and even if you think you know everything about it, you probably don't. If you did you'd be charging £100 an hour and you'd be working behind a desk.

If you go limited I think it's obligatory isn't it as you have to submit accounts to Companies House. I have an accountant now but as a sole trader I didn't bother. It's just a tax return really and I've always done my own.

As Tosh said, you already have the data and if you use Aworka, the business page is a two minute job. I'll do mine and the wife's personal tax returns this year.

Agreed for when you are limited.

I've already done my personal tax return for Jan next year, easy peasy really. Its the limited co. stuff that I can't get my head around. Hence why a decent accountant is worth every penny. We had a question mark over a bank deposit from the other business which threatened our mortgage application and he sorted it and saved a lot of stress.

[Arnold Palmer]

You should only become a LTD company on the advice of an accountant though.

Chicken and egg innit.

[p1w1]

just cant be bothered doing it myself.

You will have to provide your income and expenditure; keeping track of that is the 'work'.

You've already bothered!

Press of a button on cleaner planner does that. Thats different to try working out what you can claim for, what percentage you can claim, best way to claim it etc etc..plus being able to get advice with a quick phone call. all for the sake of a few hundred quid.
A bit like cold or hot water not completely necessary but good to have for a small outlay (although cold is fine enough for me on that subject).

[Marc Stock]

I'm not 100% sure but I believe an accountants bill cannot be used as a deductible expense. Might be worth checking.

Correct, sort of.

If you are using an accountant to manage your business affairs before tax that is deductible. Sales ledger, accounts payable and profits calculated.

However if you need your accountant to file your personal tax return, ie some personal additional income needs declaring then this is not tax deductible as it doesn't form part of the business and would require a separate personal return to be filled in.