Accountant seems to have stolen £15k+ Don't know what to do

Tammykitty

AngryandScared wrote: »

Self employed, no longer so. Didn't have expenses. The total amount I was meant to owe was £17.5k for up to April then he guessed £2k for the period after that as I had accepted a new position in a company starting not long after. I just thought it would be easier to hand the lot over.

As you can see I'm completely clueless. I'm just hoping he comes back and explains because right now I'm paralysed by fear that somehow I'm going to owe all this money again.

All businesses have expenses which your accountant has probably worked out for you.


Home as office expenses of £3 a week for example which your accountant will know to include on tax return.


Does your business have no insurance, no mileage costs etc?


£62k of Revenue and no expenses seems strange, or do you meant the expenses were already deducted to give £62k profit?


You need to see a copy of your tax return, and possibly previous years as well.


It may be possible that as the business was closing, some of the tax paid was actually paid relating to prior periods (Due to various tax reliefs claimed etc)


Your accountant has not skipped town, he replied to you e-mail, now give him a change to explain.

AngryandScared

Tammykitty wrote: »

All businesses have expenses which your accountant has probably worked out for you.


Home as office expenses of £3 a week for example which your accountant will know to include on tax return.


Does your business have no insurance, no mileage costs etc?


£62k of Revenue and no expenses seems strange, or do you meant the expenses were already deducted to give £62k profit?


You need to see a copy of your tax return, and possibly previous years as well.


It may be possible that as the business was closing, some of the tax paid was actually paid relating to prior periods (Due to various tax reliefs claimed etc)


Your accountant has not skipped town, he replied to you e-mail, now give him a change to explain.

Sorry in a bit of a fuzz. I had some expenses, but they were low. I was very very careful about what I expensed. It was £62k after expenses. I'm going to dig everything out. I have copies of everything, somewhere. Here's hoping he replies soon and has a reasonable explanation.

jobbingmusician

Hmm, I wouldn't go and see him alone - make sure you have a witness with you. (Just for witnessing stuff, not because I am suggesting violence of any kind.)

TBagpuss

I'd do as the accountant daid and call them.

It's possible this is a miscommuniction.

Normally you pay tax in two tranches when you are self-employed, so you make a payment in January and another in July.
Have you asked HMRC for confirmation of what tax you've paid for previous years? It's possible that the £20K covered two tax years - you normally it does - so you may have paid £15k for one year and £5K for the other.

Speakingto the accountnat should not disadvantage you - if they say that they sent the full amountto HMRC then you can ask them for evidence so you can pursue a complaint against HMRC. If they say that they didn't receive that or that you have misunderstood, you can ask them for copies ofthe various returns etc they have prepared and then get them checked by a diferent accountant.

theoretica

If you want to find out if he is still there you could get a friend to call the switchboard and try to make an appointment.

Slinky

Lesson to learn from this is that cheques for tax are made payable to HMRC and not your accountant. Mine gives me all the details to pay HMRC directly by BACS, I can't imagine any reason for a reputable accountant to need/want tax money being paid to themselves.

I hope you get it sorted.

sheramber

You do need to pay the tax due to HMRC. You are responsible for paying, not your accountant. HMRC are not interested in arrangements you have with your accountant.

If you cannot view your return and statement of account online ask HMRC for a copy of the original return submitted and the amended one, along with details of the date and amount of payments made.

Once you have these , if you cannot reconcile what has happened, then take these to a new accountant with your income/expenses details and ask him to review them.

redpete

I guess the advice to only communicate in writing is to ensure you have some evidence. Unfortunately you're currently getting nothing at all. I would call his mobile and see what he says, then follow up in writing.

cadon

I'm not sure I follow this story and I'm an accountant myself. But let me try to help a little.

This accountant of yours - one-man band or part of a larger firm? I.e. is there anyone else you can escalate this to within the same firm?

Is he a qualified accountant? Are there letters after his name on any emails, letters or maybe an original business card? If he's qualified, he's regulated, and that means there's a professional body who can get involved and take this seriously.

If you think he's actually stolen money from you as opposed to this being one giant balls up, why haven't you gone to the police yet? That would be theft. I don't understand why you've involved Action Fraud.

It is possible to pay an agent your tax and/or for tax refunds to go to the agent, but generally unnecessary. There are some circumstances where it makes sense, but there aren't many and I don't think it's common practice.

It is possible to make an application to reduce your payments on account if you think you're going to owe less tax. Payments on account are based on the prior year, so your payments for 2014/15 would have been based on your earnings for 2013/14, and if you told your accountant you were going to earn less for 2015/16, it is feasible he made a legitimate request to lower your payments.

It is possible for payments to be misallocated. There is a special reference to be used when making tax payments and if this accountant was paying over the tax for more people than just you, it is entirely possible he stuck the wrong reference on and your tax has gone to a suspense account, or the wrong taxpayer's account. Wrongly allocated funds can be tracked down by HMRC and sorted out. Sometimes the right reference is used and the money gets lost anyway. But it can always be found.

When a tax return is submitted electronically, an electronic receipt is issued. It's called an IRmark. Your accountant should have provided this receipt (it's a long string of numbers and letters) at the time of filing your partner's return. If you have that reference, HMRC will be able to cancel the penalties, because it's absolute proof the return was received by them.

It is possible your accountant has committed theft and all kinds of other crimes, it is also possible HMRC have made a major error and he's panicking as much as you are.

Personally, I think his behaviour falls below the standard required of our profession, even if this isn't actually a mess of his own creation. If a client thought I'd stolen from them when I hadn't, I certainly wouldn't be giving them the silent treatment.

Call your accountant. You can always follow up a phone call with an email - "Per our discussion, I understand X, can you please confirm?" You need to get the full facts.

Could your OH call with the phone on speaker, with you consenting verbally for the accountant to speak to him? You sound in a right flap (it's understandable) and a third party (even if at this stage it's your OH, a family member or a friend) might be useful in getting some basic information.

pelirocco

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

Our accountant does our accounts, prepares the returns and tells us how much tax we need to pay.


We then sign the returns, attach a cheque and give to our accountant.


I agree the OP should do as the accountant has asked and ring him. I would arrange a meeting at the same time.

But surely you would make the cheque out to HMRC?

Our accountant does our returns and tells us to pay HMRC