Is my accountant accountable? Lost tax refund

Mistral001

Perhaps if you have any notes of conservations with your accountant when you first emploed them, you could use those in any case that you want to bring against your accountant. If you do not then it seems like it is just your word agianst hers with both of you trying to remember what you said to each other 4 or 5 years ago.

i prepare my accounts in the same way as you do. All prepare to normal bookkeeping standards in the way i was taught when I did a an Accounts for Small Businesses even class course. Recently my accountant told me that they do not even check the receipts and bank account statements.

antrobus

Rosie_Lee wrote: »

I assumed (again - it's my downfall!) my accountant was completing and submitting my self assessments on line, on my behalf. Maybe I should check with her.

That is way I asked the question. Normally what would happen is that the accountant would indeed submit a self-assessment return on behalf of their client, and there is no way they could do that without asking you detailed questions about your other income. You'd have a received a boilerplate letter asking you to supply details of interest received etc and any income from employment.

Somebody must have submitted a self-assessment return to HMRC?

Mistral001 wrote: »

Perhaps if you have any notes of conservations with your accountant when you first emploed them, you could use those in any case that you want to bring against your accountant. .

There should be a Letter of Engagement which sets out precisely what the accountant has agreed to do.

sharnad

If you didn't mention your other employment to your accountant it's your own fault

Wywth

Rosie_Lee wrote: »

No, it was not a successful business. It made losses every year, until I ran up such huge debts I closed it down. It provided my partially sighted partner with some sort of employment. I hired the accountant because I didn't trust myself to do the forms correctly.

I just assumed that HMRC would link my NI number from my business with my NI number from my job. But they clearly don't work that way. I'm a very honest person, trying to help someone out. I was certainly not witholding information on purpose. Surely my accountant should have asked?

If, as you claim, the business was losing money every year and the accountant was not informed of your other employment/stream of income, ask the accountant how they thought you were surviving year on year making losses.

As you say this incurred you in accruing huge debts, ask your accountant how they thought you were managing to get loans when, according to their information, your only form of income was from a business that had never shown a profit, indeed was making bigger losses year on year.

nickj_2

accountants only work on the info you give them , they are not mind readers

Rosie_Lee_2

Thanks everyone for your comments and advice. Sounds like I'm going to have to put this down to experience. Wish I'd had the confidence to complete the returns myself though. I'd be £2,000 better off now with the overpaid tax and accountants fees