Accountant fees SEISS £250!

jag2020

My accountant is charging me £250
for preparation and submission of SEISS application.
I am a sole trader with no employees.
Received £4000 from SEISS

Am I being overcharged ? 
Seems like a lot of money to pay as I had to do most of the application direct to HMRC myself 
Advice please 

Thanks 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

As HMRC calculate the grant and you have to make the claim what input have you actually needed from your accountant?

What fee did you agree with them for this work?

Grumpy_chap

I understood that SEISS claim had to be submitted by the individual and was not allowed to be submitted by a representative.

Jeremy535897

It depends. I don't get the preparation or submission part. All your accountant could have done is advise you that SEISS exists, what the eligibility criteria are, tell you whether you met them or not by looking at up to (in your case) six figures on three tax returns (except possibly the intention to continue to trade question, and the adverse impact of coronavirus question, which you would have had to answer), and work out from (in your case) at most three figures to tell you what the grant would be. There would have been more work if the grant calculation by HMRC was wrong.

 As has been explained before (in the context of CJRS), the accountant will have put a considerable amount of work into studying and understanding the SEISS rules (which were complex enough to generate a lot of questions and misunderstanding on this forum), and that is a cost that the accountant will have sought to spread across their clients. 

deliclare

I wouldn't be complaining to be honest. We are still awaiting a response regarding our dispute and waiting for HMRC to look at my husband's last 3 tax years. I would be grateful you have been paid.

Hermann

jag2020 said:

My accountant is charging me £250
for preparation and submission of SEISS application.
I am a sole trader with no employees.
Received £4000 from SEISS

Am I being overcharged ? 
Seems like a lot of money to pay as I had to do most of the application direct to HMRC myself 
Advice please 

Thanks 

What did they actually do for you?

What advice did you get from them?

HMRC do the calculation and eligibility unless you had to appeal and used an accountant for the appeal? 

Pauli2

There is no appeal. You are either eligible or not eligible. You shouldn't be paying an agent to do anything re SEISS. 

Jeremy535897

Say you don't want a bill for £220 for the 70% grant announced today due in August!

jag2020

There was no appeal , all accountant needed to do was register with HMRC to verify my accounts and bank details 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

jag2020 said:

There was no appeal , all accountant needed to do was register with HMRC to verify my accounts and bank details 

This video shows you how to claim.

https://youtu.be/rPOP9HmrWoI

Accountants don't make the claim or need to verify your accounts.  In fact it's a long time since accountants needed to send accounts to HMRC for the self employed, it's all done via the Self Assessment return for 20+ years.