Should I complain ?

[northernladuk]

(actual children in a lot of circumstances).

I don't think that is true.

[VelcroPower]

I don't think that is true.

At two firms for sure. ClearSky are quite open about it with the "Optionis Academy"

It's basically 16 years olds straight from school onto apprenticeships studying AAT. They don't communicate with clients but they are working on the basic book keeping.

[Maslins]

At two firms for sure. ClearSky are quite open about it with the "Optionis Academy"

It's basically 16 years olds straight from school onto apprenticeships studying AAT. They don't communicate with clients but they are working on the basic book keeping.

Fair play. Inevitably it won't be the most fun or well paid job (indeed I wonder whether the firms fully exploit the trivial NMW that applies to apprentices!), but for a lot of youngsters school isn't great, and with tuition fees they don't want to go to uni. If by 19 you're fully qualified AAT with 3 years experience under your belt, that puts you ahead of most 21 year old new graduates in terms of desirability from perhaps better paid accountancy roles.

If like you say they don't communicate with clients, and presumably any important data is checked by someone more senior/experienced, doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.

[VelcroPower]

Yes from what I gather they are graded on accuracy and other metrics and nothing leaves the building without significant oversight. Going straight from school to that production-line KPI driven environment would probably have turned me off accountancy for life though.

The hardest thing I had to do at that age when training was make up my timesheet at 4:30pm on a Friday.

[Lance]

The hardest thing I had to do at that age when training was make up my timesheet at 4:30pm on a Friday.

but you're well practiced now

[VelcroPower]

but you're well practiced now

37 hours - Watching people hurl insults at each other in the Brexit forum
0.5 hours - Filling in timesheet

[PoH]

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and advise, much appreciated. A bit of a follow up on my initial points if I may:

2. The general advise in this forum on how to chose an accountancy firm is to talk to a few of the ones recommended here and gauge the comfort level as a gut feel. If the initial discussion is with a smooth talking first point of contact, you are sold but will later get an accountant with whom the feel might be different. So probably it is a good idea to ask which accountant will be assigned for how long and have a chat with him/her before committing. Appreciate @ Maslins' point about change in circumstances for employees but it looks like in my case the first accountant is still around but I got passed to a new joinee in the firm.

4. Here are my reasons to have a spreadsheet with all calculations and happy to be shot down if there is a better way of doing it.
4a. Totally personal reason. Even though I read the theory in prose so many times all over the internet, it never clicks in the brain until all the numbers are laid out from the start to finish. It gives a reassurance that the numbers that the accountant/freeagent calculates and me signing off makes sense.
4b. As excellent as freeagent is, it does not take into account 'all' income and expenditure to give a holistic picture. For example, my spreadsheet accomodates rental and savings interest incomes, my spouse's permie income, her salary/pension numbers, Dividend share splits, and churns out final tax bill including income tax owed for both - the full picture of how much comes in and goes out for the family.
4c. Freeagent is great for everything past upto this point in time, but cannot do any 'What if' scenarios. In the spreadie I can do What if I raise the rent by £50pm, how much of that is treated as taxable income, how much extra in tax will be pushed to the higher Dividend tax bracket and so how much extra voluntary pension will my spouse have to pay to mitigate it and then how much will her take home salary drop and will that make her angry that the hand bag has to wait for one more month.. LOL

5. If it is bespoke tax advice that I am after, are there any recommendations from any of the members please ? How will this be different from an independent financial adviser (a couple of which I had some initial discussions with and were somewhat waste of time)

6. I am not fully convinced with reply that due to time and resource constraints, the advice on how to decide share splits will be predominantly based on the current scenarios only. Due to the fact that the % cannot be fiddled with once set and since it is called tax 'planning', shouldn't the plan include some look ahead scenarios. I was a total newbie when the percentages were set, but if it was today I know that since the spouse has a PAYE income in the top of the basic rate band, any substantial share split for her will result in very little utilization of the basic rate Dividend tax and all declared dividend will be taxed at higher rate - especially as the dividend allowance has further dropped this tax year. This means that she has to now look at a huge voluntary pension contribution if the basic rate Dividend tax has to be utilized - not ideal at all.

[northernladuk]

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and advise, much appreciated. A bit of a follow up on my initial points if I may:

ADVICE

2. The general advise in this forum on how to chose an accountancy firm is to talk to a few of the ones recommended here and gauge the comfort level as a gut feel. If the initial discussion is with a smooth talking first point of contact, you are sold but will later get an accountant with whom the feel might be different. So probably it is a good idea to ask which accountant will be assigned for how long and have a chat with him/her before committing. Appreciate @ Maslins' point about change in circumstances for employees but it looks like in my case the first accountant is still around but I got passed to a new joinee in the firm.

ADVICE

If that's what you want to do then fair enough. I don't think I've spoken to my accountant in over a year thinking about. It's all been done by mail but you do have a point. I left SJD because the final straw was an accountant that was just awful to speak to on the phone. Had numerous accountants since and never had a problem. Not a bad idea I guess.

4. Here are my reasons to have a spreadsheet with all calculations and happy to be shot down if there is a better way of doing it.
4a. Totally personal reason. Even though I read the theory in prose so many times all over the internet, it never clicks in the brain until all the numbers are laid out from the start to finish. It gives a reassurance that the numbers that the accountant/freeagent calculates and me signing off makes sense.
4b. As excellent as freeagent is, it does not take into account 'all' income and expenditure to give a holistic picture. For example, my spreadsheet accomodates rental and savings interest incomes, my spouse's permie income, her salary/pension numbers, Dividend share splits, and churns out final tax bill including income tax owed for both - the full picture of how much comes in and goes out for the family.
4c. Freeagent is great for everything past upto this point in time, but cannot do any 'What if' scenarios. In the spreadie I can do What if I raise the rent by £50pm, how much of that is treated as taxable income, how much extra in tax will be pushed to the higher Dividend tax bracket and so how much extra voluntary pension will my spouse have to pay to mitigate it and then how much will her take home salary drop and will that make her angry that the hand bag has to wait for one more month.. LOL

Freeagent is for your company bookkeeping, not your personal one so you will need a spreadsheet for that. Don't mix up your business and your personal incomes. Totally different things. Freeagent sorts one, up to you to sort the rest.

5. If it is bespoke tax advice that I am after, are there any recommendations from any of the members please ? How will this be different from an independent financial adviser (a couple of which I had some initial discussions with and were somewhat waste of time)

Dunno. Been happy with the responses from my accountant but to be fair had to push the personal questions a little but got reasonable answers eventually. Not sure if it's 100% but seems fine from my limited knowledge. My situation isn't any more complicated than one BTL extra thought to be fair.

6. I am not fully convinced with reply that due to time and resource constraints, the advice on how to decide share splits will be predominantly based on the current scenarios only. Due to the fact that the % cannot be fiddled with once set and since it is called tax 'planning', shouldn't the plan include some look ahead scenarios. I was a total newbie when the percentages were set, but if it was today I know that since the spouse has a PAYE income in the top of the basic rate band, any substantial share split for her will result in very little utilization of the basic rate Dividend tax and all declared dividend will be taxed at higher rate - especially as the dividend allowance has further dropped this tax year. This means that she has to now look at a huge voluntary pension contribution if the basic rate Dividend tax has to be utilized - not ideal at all.

I tough one this. You'd be annoyed if they planned it ahead and due to some unforeseen circumstances it was wrong again but I do think it should have been considered. As long as you don't do it too often there isn't a problem with changing share allocation. Business's do change so it's not a mortal sin to do it. Doing it every year is too aggressive and will raise a flag. I assume the accountant gave you the advice that's most efficient for the year and will give you advice on how to be efficient for the next year going forward.

[Lance]

37 hours - Watching people hurl insults at each other in the Brexit forum
0.5 hours - Filling in timesheet

there was me thinking you made your timesheet up rather than being honest.
Bravo to you.

[Lance]

Due to the fact that the % cannot be fiddled with once set and since it is called tax 'planning', shouldn't the plan include some look ahead scenarios.

I'm not sure you can't change the % shareholding. What makes you say that?
As long as the shares are the same class, and you're married to your spouse then you have case law to allow you shift income in this way.

Personally I wouldn't fiddle with it too much as that may attract attention (every change is registered with companies house). But if there's a change in circumstances then go for it.
An example would be a wife who gets a promotion in permie land. That would mean that she has less time to spend on director duties so should let some of her shares go. Best if she sells them (my shares are worth £1 each and there are 10 of them) to you so it's above board.

If you shuffle them monthly, for no reason other than tax, then GAAR could become a factor I believe.