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Duke of Url
 
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Default tax accountant for self employed trades in Reading area?


"Ronald Raygun" wrote in message
...
John Stumbles wrote:

Subject says it all :-) September looming and I'm looking for an
accountant with experience of self employed tradespeople (I'm a plumber
and general jobber) who can advise me on doing my tax returns to best
advantage wrt tax etc. (I can and do DIY my accounts, it's the stuff

like
rolling over trading losses from a start-up year to successive years

that
I'm looking for help with.)


That's easy to DIY too. Presumably you've done the sensible thing
and made your accounting period end on 5th April. Your first year
was then a part year to 5/4/2003. You have a loss in that part
year, so you will put 0 into box 3.83 and the loss into box 3.84.


By concession, the IR allow a year-end of 31 March to be treated as 5 April,
to avoid dealing with the 5 day gap. However, depending on how the losses
accrue, it can be advantageous to extend the accounting period. Although not
as beneficial as under the pre SA regime, a year end of 30 April gives you
the longest time before accounts need be prepared and tax paid - e.g. 31
March 2004 means tax due by 31 January 2005, but 30 April 2004 means 31
January 2006. The IR will normally allow up to an 18 month accounting period
for the first set of accounts, so 5 April could be a costly choice.

Selection of year-end is not as simple as might appear.

You can choose whether you wish to set that loss against other
income for 2002/03 (perhaps you made a transition from being
employed to being self-employed, or perhaps you have a fortune in
savings from a lottery win or redundancy payout which has earned
you lots of interest from which tax will have been deducted), so
that you pay less tax this year (even to the extent of getting a
refund of PAYE/interest taxes deducted), or to carry it forward to
set against profits for 2003/04 so that you pay less tax next year.


There are more possibilities for loss relief in the opening 4 years-
including carrying back 3 years (useful for any employment income) and
against CGT.

Which choice is more advantageous depends among other things on
whether you have had enough income to use up your personal allowance
(because unused parts of that cannot be carried forward). You don't
have to put all the loss one way, i.e. you can set part of it against
other income (box 3.85) and carry the rest forward (box 3.87).


Also the method of asset acquisition can effect the profit/loss
computation - cars, computers etc.

IMHO, an accountant could be useful in these circumstances.
--
Doug Ramage