I was going to post this in Accounting / Legal, but it's not a question or looking for advice, more an observation.
Finally getting sick and tired of my useless twunt of an accountant (who, for example, took 6 months to do my year end accounts), so met a different firm last night. I now understand how people get into trouble. I'm fairly conservative in my dealings, and the advice I got last night did not inspire confidence.
At the moment I've got a 50/50 split with my wife, who earns a smallish salary elsewhere - advised I should move to alphabet shares to pay her different dividend levels each time.
Advised to give some shares to my mother and say that "she looks for contracts for me". She could then gift me the money back in a few years...
Advised to put part of my rent, council tax, water, electricity, gas through the business based on the number of rooms in the house versus my computer room (nothing to do with how much I use the room to actually do business).
Advised to put my entire broadband cost through.
A few other slightly dodgy claims, including that I should spend nearly £50k on a new car (under 90g/km) even though I have a fairly recent car, no need to replace it and no want to spend that much on a new one.
I raised several times that I thought some of these were sailing a bit close to the wind, only to be met each time with "Oh, we make sure we cover all our bases". Yes, you may have an excuse for each of these things individually, but I'd rather not take risks on absolutely every aspect of my structure, thanks.
Other things struck a chord, like when they took my address and then started saying that the had other clients in my area, did I know them, and then started bringing up Outlook contact cards with names, addresses and phone numbers on the screen to see if I recognised them.
Back on the hunt now, but it's only from reading about settlements legislation, etc, and the forums on here, that I knew some of these were in the least bit dodgy. I can easily see a new contractor listening to this and rubbing their hands in glee over how much they could save without thinking about risk. At least my current guy had the decency to ask "How do you feel about avoidance" up front!
Finally getting sick and tired of my useless twunt of an accountant (who, for example, took 6 months to do my year end accounts), so met a different firm last night. I now understand how people get into trouble. I'm fairly conservative in my dealings, and the advice I got last night did not inspire confidence.
At the moment I've got a 50/50 split with my wife, who earns a smallish salary elsewhere - advised I should move to alphabet shares to pay her different dividend levels each time.
Advised to give some shares to my mother and say that "she looks for contracts for me". She could then gift me the money back in a few years...
Advised to put part of my rent, council tax, water, electricity, gas through the business based on the number of rooms in the house versus my computer room (nothing to do with how much I use the room to actually do business).
Advised to put my entire broadband cost through.
A few other slightly dodgy claims, including that I should spend nearly £50k on a new car (under 90g/km) even though I have a fairly recent car, no need to replace it and no want to spend that much on a new one.
I raised several times that I thought some of these were sailing a bit close to the wind, only to be met each time with "Oh, we make sure we cover all our bases". Yes, you may have an excuse for each of these things individually, but I'd rather not take risks on absolutely every aspect of my structure, thanks.
Other things struck a chord, like when they took my address and then started saying that the had other clients in my area, did I know them, and then started bringing up Outlook contact cards with names, addresses and phone numbers on the screen to see if I recognised them.
Back on the hunt now, but it's only from reading about settlements legislation, etc, and the forums on here, that I knew some of these were in the least bit dodgy. I can easily see a new contractor listening to this and rubbing their hands in glee over how much they could save without thinking about risk. At least my current guy had the decency to ask "How do you feel about avoidance" up front!
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