I'm planning to retire in 2021. I am not selling my practice but am giving my clients plenty of notice to find a new accountant. I will be notifying HMRC to remove me as an agent. What will be my obligations if a client has a enquiry raised about a tax year that I produced the accounts and tax return for?
And in the spirit of being helpful, as many of my clients are small self-employed or only have rental income, I have canvassed my friends to see if they have an accountant with whom they are very happy, and am considering offering to provide a list of 10 of these, being clear that I am not personally recommending them. Does anyone forsee a problem with this?
Thank you for any advice
Replies (2)
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Selling through agents is pain but there will be accountants who would definitely reward you for taking over.
I would
For enquiry purposes, Just need to keep the files, and address that issue if it arises. Easy to think just a year, but enquiries can start into your years if a subsequent year is found to be in error.
PII run off definitely required.
One problem with not selling is new accountant being a smart [***] and pointing out what he thinks to be your errors, despite not being there at the time.
You won’t be under any obligation to get involved in formulating the responses to HMRC - that will be the job of the new accountants. But. as Paul says, you should keep your files accessible and provide any information from them on request.