What to expect from my accountant

murraynt

uknick wrote: »

Murray, when you say you are owed PAYE money, is this for you personally or the company?

Sorry uknick, I haven't explained myself very well. I don't owe any PAYE as I only took out just over £8000 as a wage. I only owe Corporation Tax.

uknick wrote: »

If HMRC are correct and the company has been struck off, before you cancel the direct debit, write to HMRC and ask for written confirmation they've waived the debt and there is no longer any tax left to pay. If you cancel the payments before, you could cause the HMRC debt collection service to kick in.


Have you spoken to your accountants about this and asked their advice? I know you've had problems with them, but I can't see how they can absolve themselves of all responsibility for the situation you're in. Do you know what accounting body they are a member of? If so, you could try complaining to that body.

I sent an email to my accountant asking for advice. My accountant just said to cancel it. when i asked if I should inform HMRC he said he wouldn't bother. He didn't say anything more than that really...Poor service again.

I have canceled the direct debit before another £200 pounds comes out of my account. I will call HMRC tomorrow and ask where I have to write/email to confirm the debt has been waived.

the website states they are part of the IPSE and FCSA.

Thanks for your help uknick

Pennywise

murraynt wrote: »

the website states they are part of the IPSE and FCSA.

No accountancy qualification/regulation then.

uknick

murraynt wrote: »

Sorry uknick, I haven't explained myself very well. I don't owe any PAYE as I only took out just over £8000 as a wage. I only owe Corporation Tax.

No, I asked if you or your company are OWED PAYE tax by HMRC, not do you owe PAYE tax.

murraynt

Pennywise wrote: »

No accountancy qualification/regulation then.

Next time I better pick better.

uknick wrote: »

No, I asked if you or your company are OWED PAYE tax by HMRC, not do you owe PAYE tax.

Sorry uknick. Neither myself or the company is owed PAYE as far as I’m aware.

uknick

murraynt wrote: »

Next time I better pick better.


Sorry uknick. Neither myself or the company is owed PAYE as far as I’m aware.

I'm confused. Why were you talking to HMRC about £2k owed as a result of your accountant submitting revised salary data?

murraynt

uknick wrote: »

I'm confused. Why were you talking to HMRC about £2k owed as a result of your accountant submitting revised salary data?

Hi uknick
My accountant never set up a PAYE scheme for me resulting in me taking all of the money out as dividends and no wage hence the large corporation tax bill of £6410.4 . I asked my accountant to set up a PAYE scheme after I found this out so it would reduce my corporation tax bill. This is what he said.

Accountant wrote:

]Easiest way is to just offset the final accounts that haven't been submitted, and offset the refund for the final period against the amount due in the previous year that has been submitted. The salary would be £8164, and the reduction of tax would be 19% of this which you can claim back.
As the accounts were filed to 31/10/17, the adjustment we would be doing would be from 1/11/17 to 31/3/18 (when the company closed).
Please note what we will be doing is to increase the refund due within the last period, which can then be offset against the tax due from the previous period 31/10/17.

dont_use_vistaprint

chrismac1 wrote: »

Legally you should expect him or her to deliver what is in the letter of engagement for the fee you've agreed and paid. The PAYE muckup is a big one, a year's state pension credit is worth around £1,000 on standard actuary calculations never mind the extra tax you've paid.


You've also been paying quite a bit for this. My website charge for limited company contractors is £85 a month which inlcudes PAYE and self-assessment. Note to site moderators - this is not an attempt to advertise myself just give some benchmarking, £80 to £100 a month is really the sort of price range you should expect.


First raise this with the accountant and see what the response is.

What would expect to pay a month for 2 people ltd company 1 x contractor , 1 part time admin, 2 x payroll & pensions, vat, advice re expenses/allowance for international work at client sites, paid for flights/meals/hotels etc and office equipment purchases, advice re working from home , advice re home office refurb/furniture, advice re payments to teenage children for occasional admin/office support, advice re money earned in other countries and paid in USD, advice re rental income and costs within same company structure

uknick

dont_use_vistaprint wrote: »

What would expect to pay a month for 2 people ltd company 1 x contractor , 1 part time admin, 2 x payroll & pensions, vat, advice re expenses/allowance for international work at client sites, paid for flights/meals/hotels etc and office equipment purchases, advice re working from home , advice re home office refurb/furniture, advice re payments to teenage children for occasional admin/office support, advice re money earned in other countries and paid in USD, advice re rental income and costs within same company structure

About what was previously quoted including about an hour per quarter of advice. There'd usually be more contact at the start to get a feel for the business. Some also include the cost of cloud based accounting software in that price.

dont_use_vistaprint

uknick wrote: »

About what was previously quoted including about an hour per quarter of advice. There'd usually be more contact at the start to get a feel for the business. Some also include the cost of cloud based accounting software in that price.

That sounds too cheap to me. I guess the principle applies that if you pay a decent accountant , it wont be cheap but it will pay for itself. Id be happy to pay 2-3k if it reduced my tax bill by that amount and saved me the hassle of all the admin. I dont want to pay a grand to someone and then risk receiving bad advice like the OP had and then messes things up. How do you know a good one from a duffer ?

uknick

dont_use_vistaprint wrote: »

That sounds too cheap to me. I guess the principle applies that if you pay a decent accountant , it wont be cheap but it will pay for itself. Id be happy to pay 2-3k if it reduced my tax bill by that amount and saved me the hassle of all the admin. I dont want to pay a grand to someone and then risk receiving bad advice like the OP had and then messes things up. How do you know a good one from a duffer ?

The figures quoted are about the going rate if you Google and are what we charge, admittedly at the upper end. Whilst you say you're happy to pay £2-3k per year, whilst we've saved that for some clients in tax in the first year or so, it isn't every year. And, don't forget, the quoted price is the monthly rate for routine work, if you want work done outside of the contracted work, expect to pay about £100 per hour.

Also, from what you posted I assumed you were asking for an accountant to take your trial balance and produce VAT returns, year end accounts, payroll etc., i.e. no regular book keeping work. If you wanted them to do the book keeping then the cost would go up considerably.

How do you know if one's any good? Good question. In my opinion, and I would say this , first step is to make sure they're a qualified accountant with membership of the CCAB, i.e. charted institutes and they have a practicing certificate. This means a) there is a professional body you can complain to, b) they must have liability insurance and last, but most definitely not least, c) they have to carry on their professional development each year. Therefore, if things do go wrong there is proper body to complain to who will take action against the accountant if you have a legitimate complaint and the accountant refuses to sort it out.

After picking one on those criteria, listen to the advice they give you and see if it makes sense. See if they're prepared to talk you though the numbers and ask how the treatment of various items benefits you. If they're not willing to talk to you about what they're doing, then be cautious. It might well be they don't know what they're doing and you don't want to find this out when it's too late.