Siess and a late tax return

Jeremy535897

sheramber said:

That information would have been useful in your earlier posts and saved a lot of replies.

The issue here is negligence, which is tort rather than contract, so the date the books should have been supplied is irrelevant, and so are the contract terms. The fact is that, however late the books were supplied, the accountant did complete the return in good time, and any competent accountant would have pressed the last button to submit the return. (By doing the return in time, the accountant probably varied the contract terms anyway.) The only defence would be that he was waiting for client approval and that was not forthcoming, which is not the issue here.

macman

Since the contract was presumably to 'complete and submit the return', is there not a case to be made for a refund of the fee paid, since the accountant failed to actually 'submit' the return?
In the OP's case, I would definitely be calling their bluff and sending an LBA in the hope of getting the fee back, and maybe a goodwill payment in addition? It costs nothing, and nothing to lose, since it's presumed that they will not be using this accountant again? I don't understand the OP's comment about 'the little people never winning': I was under the impression that the accountant was a one-man band anyway?