I have come across a scenario of which I haven't encountered before and wondered if anyone could offer me some advice?
I took on a self assessment client late last year who had been with his previous accountant for 20ish years. The accountant apparently has always been reliable and responsive but my client has been unable to contact him so he contacted me to submit his tax retrun for him. He has emailed, called and visited the accountants premises many times and had no luck. I have tried calling and emailing the previous accountant and sent a clearnace letter and had no response. Our conclusion is perhaps he's died or been taken ill and had no continuity of practice in place.
Anyhow, my question is, what is the best practice procedure to calculate capital allowances when you have no history of what has been claimed previously? The client has a vehicle used in his business, some plant and machinery and owns the building he uses as a shop. On his previous tax return the figure in box 25 'other capital allowances' is £458 so not a massive figure but still high enough that I would like to come to a resolution of how to calculate what's due.
Does anyone have any experience of this or have any advice please?
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Ask the Revenue for a copy of the accounts submitted with the Return and see if that helps - if you’re lucky it’ll have a balance sheet and fixed asset notes so worth trying
Thanks for your input. I have a copy of last years return and a copy of the fixed asset's register as a summary so no detail of individual assets etc. I think I will have to go with a best guess analysis.
I would work backwards assuming 18% unless there was a likelihood of the allowances being resticted due to low income
The return can be ammended for up to a year anyway should the details be revealed later
I suspect at those low amounts you only need be concerned with the car. The rest is probably AIA.
I suspect at those low amounts you only need be concerned with the car. The rest is probably AIA.
Agree. The car's the big issue. What's the wdv ? What private restrictions were there? What happens when it's sold?
It's a big weakness in the SA system. Thirty years ago, HMRC would have sent you a copy of the full computation. Now, they're like you. They don't have it.
Maybe you can find the cost of the car and when it was bought, from which you can reconstruct the claims. If not, make a lot of assumptions and do your best.
Thanks for your input. I think I will have to go with a best guess scenario. I have the cost of the car new etc. Hopefully if I can show my logic for the workings then HMRC will accept it as a 'best of a bad situation' scenario if ever they were to have an inspection?
I just like to have all the info and haven't had to reconstruct the figures before. It's a learning curve I suppose :)