Tax Advise

MB69 · 2 October 2017 at 9:13AM

Hello

I am wondering if anyone can provide advise or guide me where to go to get best advise:

I have used an accountant for the past 2 years, however I think I have been paying too much for their service.

It is for tax return for myself ( employed) and my partner ( Employed) who both pay through Payee. However as we have a property which is rented out and also I have to use my own personal car for business, I thought it would be most cost effective to get an accountant. But he has been charging us £300 per year and I think it is to much, considering I am always giving him all the details properly and all filed by months and ... and he doesn't have to do much filing himself.

Do you think it is too much?

Our combined earning from emplyment is £55k and the rental income is about £10k on top. i do about 20k miles per year in my car.

SO I am thinking either do it myself next year or get someone else to do who is a bit cheaper?

On another note,

I work as a contractor and also have full time job, bit of moon lighting I guess ( Not necessarily at night though )

I don't do it a lot as I wanted to set it up when the company I work for looked like to be going out of business and I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to be left stranded. But now I want to set it up as a limited company properly and start to do more and hopefully give up working for someone else soon.

My question is:

1) If I setup my own limited company, and lease a car through the company, can I claim the cost of the car/lease from my end of year tax ?

2) As I still will be working and classified as employed by someone else, and still have to use my own car for work, can I also claim mileage for using my own car when I do business for the company I work for?

Thanks in advance

Mark

Pennywise · 2 October 2017 at 9:30AM

Re fees, I don't think £300 is too much for 2 tax returns including a rented property. It's actually maybe a little on the low side. I'd say it falls well within the average fee range, assuming your "accountant" is properly qualified.

There've been almost yearly changes in tax law for property lettings recently, meaning you can't just "copy" what was done the year before. Some things you could have claimed a few years ago, can't be claimed for now, and vice versa, especially for furnished lettings. We're now also in a transition period where tax relief on mortgage interest will be different for each of the next 4 years.

Re your other points...

1) You can claim back 50% of the VAT if your company becomes vat registered. You can claim back 100% of the leasing costs against profits for corporation tax. BUT, you'll suffer a personal taxable benefit in kind which may mean you end up paying more personal tax than you save in corporation tax. You'd have to do the number crunching based on market price of the car when new, number of business mileage versus private mileage, CO2 emissions of the car etc. It's a very complicated set of calculations.

2) If you use your own company car for non company business (i.e. your employers), it's private mileage. Yes, you can claim the usual mileage rates on your personal tax return, but as per 1, you will also have a personal taxable benefit in kind on the car.

Most people with their own companies don't put cars through the company due to the punitive taxable benefits in kind. If you were thinking of a van or an electric car, the benefits are far lower and it's more viable, but for a mid range, petrol, average CO2 emission car, it's usually costs more in tax to have as a company car which is why relatively few do it.

realaledrinker · 7 October 2017 at 11:24PM

Advice is wot u need

Tax Advise

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