Accountants and Self Assessment

jagnew1234

Hi, I purchased my first rental flat last year and decided to get an accountant to fill in my self assessment. It was not complicated in any way by my circumstances. I work 2 days a week and gave him my tax codings etc from work. I gave him details of interest and dividends from savings. Gave him total income from rent and expences (it's an ex council flat). He charged me £630 for what seemed like very little work, He didn't find me any huge tax savings that I couldn't have found myself. It seemed a large chunk out of the £4000 profit. I often see advice saying it's worth hiring an accountant as they can end up saving you money ? On a straight forward assessment like mine is it easy enough to complete it yourself. I have worked all my life in Local Government administration so I am used to form filling. I'm sure accountants are worth their weight in gold in large dealings with the tax office but could I do without one.
Thanks, Jim

PlutoinCapricorn

If you have very complicated affairs and/or find it difficult to cope with figures and forms and/or have no time for such things and the initial research and/or are making large amounts then paying for help seems sensible. Saying that they save you more than they cost is a generalisation that is often seen on here but just doesn't apply to everyone.

I am sure that once you have seen how it is done, you will be able to do it yourself. I have always done mine: information can be found with Google or you can ask on here.

Pennywise

Did you not shop around and get quotes before you chose? That's very expensive for a simple SA return for a single property. Like any other service, some are good, some are bad, some cheap, some expensive. If you are happy doing it yourself and think you can keep yourself up to date and research it all, then you don't need an accountant. If you want peace of mind that it's right, then you probably do need one. But you should be able to find a qualified accountant to do it for £100-£150 p.a. if you shop around.

chrismac1

My advice is to get a fixed price contract next time. £630 is just way over the top unless you drip fed the information, needing to be chased for the missing bits more than once.

Apart from just knowing the standard rules, the main savings in my view come when you sell up. Where a client is selling a property I've been doing the rental accounts on, we have a full record of all the claimable capital costs which can reduce any CGT liability. Where I've not been doing the rentals, or not doing them long, there is not the same evidence over what the original costs were, and whether they've already been claimed as a rental expense.

This may not seem a big deal with £11k CGT bands and low rates of CGT. But in my view whoever wins the election in 2015 CGT is "low hanging fruit" which can bring in several billions a year in revenue without losing many votes.