Michael Beaver
Member Since: 10th Jul 2013
Likes: 25
Thanks: 380
I'm a Chartered Accountant with over two decades of experience in practice and in industry.
Having trained at a Big 6 (then 5, then 4) firm in Australia, I trained in tax, audit and consulting and then moved into industry in the financial services sector, which brought me to the UK in early 2005.
After several stints in senior finance positions at UK banks, and being the CFO for a City of London equities exchange for 6 years, I set up my own practice in early 2014.
My client list includes mainly finance and technology start ups, but also includes fashion companies, film editors and retail and property businesses.
My answers
Because that would require, you know ... actual work from their side?
I don't know how many of my clients have been called out of the blue being sold the dream of free money because of the 'R&D' they've done. Thankfully my clients are well trained enough to call us first before doing anything tax related. Almost always the conversation ends in 'you can try if you like but you'll also need a new accounting firm, as I don't believe you qualify and any claim you make will be fraudulent'. Never had a client proceed with one of these.
Last year the extension saved our sanity, although coming too late to save most of it. The earlier announcement is welcome, although we've had a better year with 66% already filed and only 10% of clients yet to deliver their records. In any year this would be good for us, but the extension will save some weekends at any rate, and those last 10% won't annoy me quite so much.
Me, too (I think!). I'll have to think of clever things to post in 2022, all whilst keeping one eye on the exit door.
When you have the time and patience to do this for one or a few clients it's always very satisfying. As we have done in the past.
Although with MTD coming up, I don't know how we can do this for 300+ clients with the staff that we have. The alternative is to take on more staff and make a loss, or kick some clients to the curb (and good luck to them) to scale down to a level we can manage.
The two issues I have in following your methods are pricing and resources. We have about 300 clients who are due to be caught by MTD for ITSA. Ordinarily we have 9 to 10 months to complete their annual self assessments, and despite a lump in January we're pretty busy all through the year.
In theory we could take on the bookkeeping, but the pricing for most of these clients isn't included in their fees. Also, doing the bookkeeping for 300 clients all in one month, every three months would be an absolute nightmare to resource - and that's if you can manage to recruit even one member of staff in this environment.
This does make me feel that there will be clients who will be jettisoned by firms who will struggle to get advice anywhere.
Right!
I hope this also gives enough time for the tax institutions to lobby the government to amend the implementation plan so that it progresses in stages, like auto enrolment did.
Thank god!!
Non-resident landlords selling UK property can sign up to the new CGT for Property account without going through the ID check rubbish. I imagine it will be the same here?
Why they can't just link it to the UTR and be done with it only God knows.
Yes, indeed! And the worst part will be January 2024, when the previous year's tax returns are due, and the Q3 quarterly MTD reports will all be due as well!