Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: no way Jose on June 29, 2017, 05:26:21 pm
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Hi everyone
I would be very grateful to get your opinions.
I'm a sole trader earning under £24.000 ( before tax ) a year .
Using an accountant would cost me : £300+ vat .( total:£360)
I've been doing my tax return myself for the last 4 year.
Now , for my peace of mind and to make sure no mistakes are done I'm seriously considering using an account.
In your opinion would it be worth the money?
Ps: for me spending £360 a year is not beer money but if it really was worth it then I would go along!
Thank you very much
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I believe having an accountant is definitely worth it as you say peace of mind. The £360 will also be tax deductible. Try it 1 year and see what difference in tax you pay. Then you will know at least if its worth it financially, only you can decide if the peace of mind that goes with it is worth it to you.
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I'm not 100% sure but I believe an accountants bill cannot be used as a deductible expense. Might be worth checking.
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It's an extra £8 a week job or one £30 a month job.
You know how much tax you currently pay and I'll bet you he'll save you.
As been said try it for a year.
Tony
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Using an accountant is definitely tax detuctible.
To me using an accountant would be mainly for peace of mind as I can't think of anything worse and more stressful than being investigated by hmrc ( an investigation takes an average a bit over 1 year!) even if originally it's due to a genuine mistake !
Many thanks for sharing your thoughts!!
It's really reassuring !
I'm definitely going to go with it!
Cheers
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A good accountant will save you his fee anyway. Arrange a meeting with a couple and see what they say.
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I wouldn't use an accountant if your goal is to save more tax
As a sole trader cleaning wimdows it isn't hard to work out what your can claim and what you can't so it won't help you there.
BUT it will give you piece of mind incase of a HRMC investigation.
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As a sole trader, if you have done it yourself for four years, stick with it. I seriously doubt he'll find £2,000 worth of expenses which is what it would take to break even.
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I wouldn't use an accountant if your goal is to save more tax
As a sole trader cleaning wimdows it isn't hard to work out what your can claim and what you can't so it won't help you there.
BUT it will give you piece of mind incase of a HRMC investigation.
Not sure how you arrive at this Adam.
Most accountants will save you with their knowledge of how the system works. The peace of mind bit in case of an investigation means he will charge you the earth when acting on your behalf and will come out of it by saying he only prepared the accounts to your instructions.
The National Federation of small business in their fee offer an insurance to cover accounting fees while under investigation.
This is my understanding but it might not be 100%
Tony
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Hi everyone
I would be very grateful to get your opinions.
I'm a sole trader earning under £24.000 ( before tax ) a year .
Using an accountant would cost me : £300+ vat .( total:£360)
I've been doing my tax return myself for the last 4 year.
Now , for my peace of mind and to make sure no mistakes are done I'm seriously considering using an account.
In your opinion would it be worth the money?
Ps: for me spending £360 a year is not beer money but if it really was worth it then I would go along!
Thank you very much
I would say yes and yes he will save you his fee by reducing you tax bill
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Just looked at mine now , i have had him for 12 years (day 1) , i use him purely because i dont have a clue in the area , im sure that i could be using him more to my advantage , e.g. claiming for more than i do , i know a few people who get away with murder due to their accountants , and apparently its all above board , its knowing the loopholes and pushing the limits , i dont really want to be involved with that just to be safe , and the fact that my accountant doesnt push it makes me feel a bit more trusting of him.
I pay him £252 a year and see that he put it down as a £192 expense , therefore that has pretty much covered the outlay.
I also see that i got £156 from use of room as office , £104 for cleaning my scrims , £125 for a phone , these things i didnt even consider really .
I feel i get my moneys worth from him so im happy with that !
Rich
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Worth having a decent accountant.
Mine costs a fair bit a month but is totally worth it.
I wouldn't have been able to get our mortgage without him so more than worth it in my book.
I got lots of advice from him regarding my businesses and what I can and can't do etc.
Just do it.
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As a sole trader, if you have done it yourself for four years, stick with it. I seriously doubt he'll find £2,000 worth of expenses which is what it would take to break even.
Agree with this.
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I wouldn't use an accountant if your goal is to save more tax
As a sole trader cleaning wimdows it isn't hard to work out what your can claim and what you can't so it won't help you there.
BUT it will give you piece of mind incase of a HRMC investigation.
Not sure how you arrive at this Adam.
Most accountants will save you with their knowledge of how the system works. The peace of mind bit in case of an investigation means he will charge you the earth when acting on your behalf and will come out of it by saying he only prepared the accounts to your instructions.
The National Federation of small business in their fee offer an insurance to cover accounting fees while under investigation.
This is my understanding but it might not be 100%
Tony
Surely people know what expenses they can claim? Pretty much anything that's used solely or part for business use is claimable. A quick search online will confirm it.
Dont need an accountant to tell me what I can and can't claim it's not hard to find out yourself.
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300 per year is a good price - I pay twice that. It is also an old addage that an accountant should save you his fees in tax savings - probably something started by accountants.
What you might not be aware of is that the tax structure and returns are changing fairly soon (year after next I think) and this will mean quarterly returns for everyone. >:(
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There's a simple test, count the fingers on both your hands, anything above ten and your either a mutant or need an accountant,
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Using an accountant is definitely tax detuctible.
To me using an accountant would be mainly for peace of mind as I can't think of anything worse and more stressful than being investigated by hmrc ( an investigation takes an average a bit over 1 year!) even if originally it's due to a genuine mistake !
Many thanks for sharing your thoughts!!
It's really reassuring !
I'm definitely going to go with it!
Cheers
Why would it take a year to investigate a shiner on £24k a year ? seriously unless your claiming £10k a year in expenses the
chances of you ever being investigated are nil.
As long as your declaring all you earn then the only mistake you can make is to pay too much tax as they will reject expenses claims that don't qualify there and then, listen to 8 weekly on this one.
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As a sole trader, if you have done it yourself for four years, stick with it. I seriously doubt he'll find £2,000 worth of expenses which is what it would take to break even.
If you pay the accountant £360, you're up if he finds you extra claimable expenses of £361.
Vin
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As a sole trader, if you have done it yourself for four years, stick with it. I seriously doubt he'll find £2,000 worth of expenses which is what it would take to break even.
If you pay the accountant £360, you're up if he finds you extra claimable expenses of £361.
Vin
£361 in extra claimable expenses will save you around £80, why do people not understand what tax deductible actually means.
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As a sole trader, if you have done it yourself for four years, stick with it. I seriously doubt he'll find £2,000 worth of expenses which is what it would take to break even.
If you pay the accountant £360, you're up if he finds you extra claimable expenses of £361.
Vin
£361 in extra claimable expenses will save you around £80, why do people not understand what tax deductible actually means.
You are, of course, completely correct. My mistake.
Vin
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As a sole trader, if you have done it yourself for four years, stick with it. I seriously doubt he'll find £2,000 worth of expenses which is what it would take to break even.
If you pay the accountant £360, you're up if he finds you extra claimable expenses of £361.
Vin
£361 in extra claimable expenses will save you around £80, why do people not understand what tax deductible actually means.
You are, of course, completely correct. My mistake.
Vin
Because you are usually / often right I spent about 15 minutes trying to get my head around why I was wrong until I read Dry Clean's post. That's 15 minutes I won't get back. ;D
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Well, you will, sort of.
You can offset those lost 15 minutes as a business expense and reclaim 20% of them back against tax. So you'll gain an extra 3 minutes, unless you're earnings progress in to the 40% tax bracket, in which case you'll get 6 minutes back. Not bad. Unless you consider it a fair exchange for having wasted 15 minutes of your time reading one of SeanK's posts who is now trading as DryClean. Assuming he's informed HMRC of this change in his operating setup. In which case you'll probably find any receipts from DryClean for your wasted time as being as useless as the paper they're written on as you won't be able to present them as operating costs. Ask your accountant. Or write it off as a 'Bad Debt'.
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as a sole trader under the vat threshold i would say an accountant is unnecessary - its just a matter of income and expenditure
those accountants charging that amount barely loom at your books let alone spend hours going through it with a fine tooth comb
and at the end of the day YOU sign that its all correct - any errors and investigations are down to YOU that includes the 1000's of pounds your accountant will now charge dealing with the tax man - join the FSB and use there protection insurance
once you get to the VAT or have staff - van leasing - property rented/brought then the accountant is invaluable at choosing the option that gives you the smallest tax liability
Darran
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^^^ What Barry said , probably the case for me , not that i ever did my returns in the first place , reason being that i dont understsand them anyway , cant be arsed , plus when i started up i needed a mortgage and was not even getting considered as i did not have an accountant let alone 3 years worth of figures to go on , he made it possible and that is that , i will keep giving him £252 a year not to stress , whats £252 anyway ?
1 £20 house a month thats all !
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^^^ What Barry said , probably the case for me , not that i ever did my returns in the first place , reason being that i dont understsand them anyway , cant be arsed , plus when i started up i needed a mortgage and was not even getting considered as i did not have an accountant let alone 3 years worth of figures to go on , he made it possible and that is that , i will keep giving him £252 a year not to stress , whats £252 anyway ?
1 £20 house a month thats all !
£240 ;D see why you have your accountant ;D agree with what you say same reason for me really just cant be bothered doing it myself.
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Thinking about it , if you spin it , and consider that if our custies thought to themselves , hey its only 30 minutes a month to clean my own windows i will save £20 a month , why dont they , i will tell you why , cos they cant be fooked to end of .
If they did then we would all be fooked ;D ;D ;D
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^^^ What Barry said , probably the case for me , not that i ever did my returns in the first place , reason being that i dont understsand them anyway , cant be arsed , plus when i started up i needed a mortgage and was not even getting considered as i did not have an accountant let alone 3 years worth of figures to go on , he made it possible and that is that , i will keep giving him £252 a year not to stress , whats £252 anyway ?
1 £20 house a month thats all !
£240 ;D see why you have your accountant ;D agree with what you say same reason for me really just cant be bothered doing it myself.
I just knew i would get that ...... ;D....... I should have put £21 , but im a rounding down kinda guy , i like to offer a bit of value , plus i would have to carry a lot more £1 coins and again i cant be fooked ;D ;D ;D
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^^^ What Barry said , probably the case for me , not that i ever did my returns in the first place , reason being that i dont understsand them anyway , cant be arsed , plus when i started up i needed a mortgage and was not even getting considered as i did not have an accountant let alone 3 years worth of figures to go on , he made it possible and that is that , i will keep giving him £252 a year not to stress , whats £252 anyway ?
1 £20 house a month thats all !
£240 ;D see why you have your accountant ;D agree with what you say same reason for me really just cant be bothered doing it myself.
I just knew i would get that ...... ;D....... I should have put £21 , but im a rounding down kinda guy , i like to offer a bit of value , plus i would have to carry a lot more £1 coins and again i cant be fooked ;D ;D ;D
sorry couldn't resist, it is CIU after all you should know better ;D
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I expect no more , you are but lowly window cleaners , no prospects , no aspirations , just beer tokens ;D ;D ;D
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just cant be bothered doing it myself.
You will have to provide your income and expenditure; keeping track of that is the 'work'.
You've already bothered!
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If you're a straight forward 'i earn this and spend this' kind of person then yes. Hiring an accountant is pointless. If you own, or want to own property, if you employ, or if you have any complexity within your business then employ an accountant. Even if you think everything you do is easy, speak to one (or two) anyway. Tax is complex and even if you think you know everything about it, you probably don't. If you did you'd be charging £100 an hour and you'd be working behind a desk.
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If you're a straight forward 'i earn this and spend this' kind of person then yes. Hiring an accountant is pointless. If you own, or want to own property, if you employ, or if you have any complexity within your business then employ an accountant. Even if you think everything you do is easy, speak to one (or two) anyway. Tax is complex and even if you think you know everything about it, you probably don't. If you did you'd be charging £100 an hour and you'd be working behind a desk.
If you go limited I think it's obligatory isn't it as you have to submit accounts to Companies House. I have an accountant now but as a sole trader I didn't bother. It's just a tax return really and I've always done my own.
As Tosh said, you already have the data and if you use Aworka, the business page is a two minute job. I'll do mine and the wife's personal tax returns this year.
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If you're a straight forward 'i earn this and spend this' kind of person then yes. Hiring an accountant is pointless. If you own, or want to own property, if you employ, or if you have any complexity within your business then employ an accountant. Even if you think everything you do is easy, speak to one (or two) anyway. Tax is complex and even if you think you know everything about it, you probably don't. If you did you'd be charging £100 an hour and you'd be working behind a desk.
I'd rather earn that cleaning windows than sat behind a desk :)
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If you're a straight forward 'i earn this and spend this' kind of person then yes. Hiring an accountant is pointless. If you own, or want to own property, if you employ, or if you have any complexity within your business then employ an accountant. Even if you think everything you do is easy, speak to one (or two) anyway. Tax is complex and even if you think you know everything about it, you probably don't. If you did you'd be charging £100 an hour and you'd be working behind a desk.
If you go limited I think it's obligatory isn't it as you have to submit accounts to Companies House. I have an accountant now but as a sole trader I didn't bother. It's just a tax return really and I've always done my own.
As Tosh said, you already have the data and if you use Aworka, the business page is a two minute job. I'll do mine and the wife's personal tax returns this year.
Agreed for when you are limited.
I've already done my personal tax return for Jan next year, easy peasy really. Its the limited co. stuff that I can't get my head around. Hence why a decent accountant is worth every penny. We had a question mark over a bank deposit from the other business which threatened our mortgage application and he sorted it and saved a lot of stress.
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You should only become a LTD company on the advice of an accountant though.
Chicken and egg innit.
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just cant be bothered doing it myself.
You will have to provide your income and expenditure; keeping track of that is the 'work'.
You've already bothered!
Press of a button on cleaner planner does that. Thats different to try working out what you can claim for, what percentage you can claim, best way to claim it etc etc..plus being able to get advice with a quick phone call. all for the sake of a few hundred quid.
A bit like cold or hot water not completely necessary but good to have for a small outlay (although cold is fine enough for me on that subject).
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I'm not 100% sure but I believe an accountants bill cannot be used as a deductible expense. Might be worth checking.
Correct, sort of.
If you are using an accountant to manage your business affairs before tax that is deductible. Sales ledger, accounts payable and profits calculated.
However if you need your accountant to file your personal tax return, ie some personal additional income needs declaring then this is not tax deductible as it doesn't form part of the business and would require a separate personal return to be filled in.