east mids accountant recommendantion

[dgw]

Hi all , would appreciate if anyone can help. Sorry if this is covering old ground.

Have been contracting for year and a half now as a cad jockey and paid via umbrella company. A very lazy set-up that since April I've realised I need to sort out.

Contract is 'IR35 friendly'.

Been using Filetravel for the past year who I must say are excellent compared to my first service provider. However since April I'm loosing almost 50% of earning to tax and Ni. And therefore I need to change to Ltd.

1. Can anyone recommend an independent accountant in or around Derby/Burton/Birmingham area, I've seen the general accountant recommendations on the forum and will use either NW or SJD if nothing better however I would prefer a local accountant.

2. Under IR35 I understand I'll be 5% better off as Ltd compared to Umbrella if I've understood the threads correctly, however many of you are saying IR35 is now greatly Ignored. Can anyone explain further? Or is it just tax insurance?


Thanks Dave

[ruth11]

50% lost? ouch!

SJD are local to you - I live in Leicester and use their Birmingham office.

[Old Greg]

50% lost? ouch!

SJD are local to you - I live in Leicester and use their Birmingham office.

I also use their Birmingham office which is really good. They come out to see you when you join up. Everything else I've done over the phone and email.

[malvolio]

The difference is between the cost of YourCo agaisnt the cost of an umbrella. Even the cheaest umbrella runs around £2.5k a year in reality (assuming you work the full year), accountants are around £500-£1200. If you're inside IR35 you pay PAYE on 95% of your gross less a few allowable expenses, that's where the 5% comes from.

As for IR35 being voluntary - well that's my slightly jaundiced view but only 4 out of 1400 challenges on IR35 caught status have been upheld by the courts. If you have any doubts, get your contract professionally reviewed: the indicators that put you outside are well understood. As an incentive to learn the subject properly, consider that the average difference beween caught and not-caught is around 20% on take-home - quite a lot for ticking one box on the P35...

[williamdavis]

Yep SJD Birmingham office is really good.