[Closed] Anyone self-employed here?

yup...

that's what my accountant is for. a massive weight off my shoulders for a few hundred a year.

Haven't started mine yet - still a couple of weeks to go. 🙂

A good accountant will probably save you more than they cost.
Worth every penny.

Yep, love my accountant - small refund this year.

I'm away at the end of the month so mine has just gone in. Its a pain but I'm not quite earning enough to pay someone a few hundred quid for a couple of hours work. Bit of a shock when I got to the total then realised I'd already paid most of the balance mid way through last year 🙂

You 2 may be smiling but a refund and your balancing payment on account nearly paying the years tax means you both possibly earned less money last year 😐

My accountant saved me £2500 on what I was expecting to pay and only cost me £660, that's good value in my opinion.

Done mine but need to do Mrs J's 👿

+1 for a good accountant.

Bit of a shock when I got to the total then realised I'd already paid most of the balance mid way through last year 🙂

My missus had a bit of a shock when she found out she needs to pay half of this year as well (First full year, so she didn't pay the interim payment before).

Whoops! 😆

Accountant does it for me. 100 quid a year and I use free accounting software to keep the accounts up to date so he just logs on and does my return using the data from that.

Hold tight, you do all the book keeping and he charges you £100 to log on and spend 5 mins filling in the form? bargain!

I do all mine myself, I'm only a 1 man band but keep all sales receipts and purchase receipts as I go, couple of simple calculations for depreciation and stuff and we're ready to rock. don't take more than a few hours and costs nowt.

Love all the "my accountant got me a big refund" It's only money you've already over paid them!

just done my first one tonight. Got a massive tax bill coming 🙂

You 2 may be smiling but a refund and your balancing payment on account nearly paying the years tax means you both possibly earned less money last year

depends on the nature of your business. A big proportion of my turnover tends to come in a few big clumps each year -either a big cheque at the end of a long project or a bunch of jobs can all happen at once (I had the delivery deadlines for a feature film set, a game show set and a major installation for an arts festival all within 48hrs a wee while back) - so where those lumps of income or expenditure fall either side of an arbitrary point in the calendar it can make it appear as if my profit halves or doubles from year to year - usually because the expenditure is one year's return and the income is in another. So more me last years return was almost exactly half the profit of the year before, but the years either side are in the middle of those two figures and its only the average rather than the peaks and troughs that matter to me.

That's why I used "possibly" not "probably"

I do all mine myself, I'm only a 1 man band but keep all sales receipts and purchase receipts as I go, couple of simple calculations for depreciation and stuff and we're ready to rock. don't take more than a few hours and costs nowt.

That's just one of the reasons you need an accountant. Depreciation isn't tax allowable.

Good accountants spend a lot of time staying current of tax law and help businesses plan on taking advantage of those rules but if you can do better that's great.

usually because the expenditure is one year's return and the income is in another. So more me last years return was almost exactly half the profit of the year before, but the years either side are in the middle of those two figures and its only the average rather than the peaks and troughs that matter to me.

Try using work in progress to match the expenses to the income.

simple its called an Accountant, and will save you a hell lot more than DIY accounting

That's just one of the reasons you need an accountant. Depreciation isn't tax allowable.

Of course it is. I claim for depriciation on my vehicle as it value decreases year on year. All perfectly allowable. My business model is very simple so is pretty easy to work out my tax liability. But thanks for your concern.

Love all the "my accountant got me a big refund" It's only money you've already over paid them!

Thank you for telling me my trade. Have a read of [url= http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/worksheets/sa103f-notes.pdf ]this[/url] then add back your depreciation to box 43 and start using capital allowances at the relevant rates.

Craigxxl I appreciate that you know your job, not saying you don't and it narks me when people tell me how to do mine. I'm not about to get into an internet argument over it. I've had an audit and they were happy with how I'm doing things so I'll continue with that.

100 gets me a 2 hour meeting to go through everything and double check. Fill out my tax return and the complicated bits like depreciation which I haven't the desire to learn myself and produce a profit and loss statement etc I also have an employee btw. The accountant is very thorough and by the book so I've not had the hassle of being audited in 8 years and I always know how much my tax bill will be so no nasty suprises. Worth 100 quid a year!

Tax returns aren't complicated for me, but our 3 businesses are all quite simple models. The main business is VAT registered too, but that probably helps, as the VAT return is very simple, but gives you a kick up the arse every 3 months.

If I'm unsure of anything, I look it up on the HMRC website. Got myself £6k back last Jan and everything was black and white - but as others have said, it was only my money already, that I'd overpaid via the CIS. Being VAT registered saves us around a grand a quarter too.

If/when I register my main business as a Ltd Company, then I'll probably employ an accountant.