Accountants - am I missing something?

**ittony** · 7 May 2008, 11:02

Originally posted by SandyDown View Post

Been talking to various people, and they all pay their accountants a lot more than I do...

My accountant services includes companies accounts/bookes/Tax etc EOY he charges me around £300 per year for that, and Personal Tax, he charges me £100 per year for that. So for the whole year I pay him around £350 or £400 max.... he will not charge me for contract review (IR35 reviews) , and I can mail him any time with queries, he replies immediately, and again he doesn't charge me for answering my queries.

Other people seem to pay their accountants that much every month, service includes Accoutns (company and personal/ PAYE ) VAT, contract review, invoicing etc, and what they claim to be a total management?

I don't understand it, am I missing something?
HMRC sends me an email notification that VAT is due, it takes me a few minutes to log on and pay it myself (online) invoicing the agency takes me a couple of minutes too... I can go to my bank online at the end of the year and download all my year's statements in a nice spreadsheet, all I need to do is highlight it (colour it in

) and add a column explaining some stuff, this way the accountants just fills in the forms and produces the letters/docs... all these tasks only take up very little time (lets say less than an hour a month)

So why do some pay their accountants £350-£400 per month.. I mean this is like a little mortgage on its own, right?

Am I missing something?

Sounds like just what I'm looking for. Where's he based?

**sidknows** · 7 May 2008, 11:37

who charges 35-400 a month

does your current accountant charge your for references ?
can you ask him for an up to date tax position at any time of the year ?
are u vat registered ?

if he does all the following you are getting a good deal

**Moscow Mule** · 7 May 2008, 11:52

My accountant costs about £100 a month. Who's paying more than £200 a month?

**oracleslave** · 7 May 2008, 11:56

Originally posted by Moscow Mule View Post

My accountant costs about £100 a month. Who's paying more than £200 a month?

WHS

**THEPUMA** · 7 May 2008, 11:57

I don't think it's what your accountant does, it's how much tax they can save you that is crucial.

If I were a contractor, I would want to minimise my combined tax plus accountancy fees. The difficulty is establishing who offers this. I guess what I would do is do some research on CUK, ring around a few accountants and ask them about topical issues such as IR35, National Minimum Wage, entrepreneurs' relief, income shifting etc and decide who gave the most convincing answers.

There is no point saving £1000 on accountancy fees if it costs you £2000 in tax.

If you've found someone who can deal with all the compliance and tax advice for under £400 pa, then they are underselling themselves and you're very lucky to have found them.

**EvilWeevil** · 7 May 2008, 15:10

Originally posted by THEPUMA View Post

I don't think it's what your accountant does, it's how much tax they can save you that is crucial.

If I were a contractor, I would want to minimise my combined tax plus accountancy fees. The difficulty is establishing who offers this. I guess what I would do is do some research on CUK, ring around a few accountants and ask them about topical issues such as IR35, National Minimum Wage, entrepreneurs' relief, income shifting etc and decide who gave the most convincing answers.

There is no point saving £1000 on accountancy fees if it costs you £2000 in tax.

But you're an accountant, right? It's in your interests for people to use accountants. Would you be prepared to guarantee that you could save me at least your fees in tax if I became your customer?

**malvolio** · 7 May 2008, 15:32

Originally posted by EvilWeevil View Post

But you're an accountant, right? It's in your interests for people to use accountants. Would you be prepared to guarantee that you could save me at least your fees in tax if I became your customer?

It would be a damned poor accountant that didn't cover his own fees IMHO...

**NotAllThere** · 7 May 2008, 15:43

Surely the £1000 of tax saved only works once*. After that you could just do what the accountant did to save the tax yourself, without the accountancy fees.

* OK, once per change of law that occurs every five minutes...

**THEPUMA** · 7 May 2008, 16:00

Originally posted by EvilWeevil View Post

But you're an accountant, right? It's in your interests for people to use accountants. Would you be prepared to guarantee that you could save me at least your fees in tax if I became your customer?

No because theoretically you might be doing everything perfectly correctly. I could guarantee to save you at least 21% of our fees in tax if that's any good?!

You'll have to decide whether or not it's worth a punt.

I'll happily do a tax-based fee if you like (assuming the Institute will let me). ie you show me how you're currently operating and I'll charge you 50% of any tax savings I make in year one as my fee.

Roll up, roll up.

Etc

Offer only applies to people who don't know what they're doing. Or anyone paying themselves national minimum wage.

Accountants - am I missing something?