Duke of Url wrote:


"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.

I'm sure you're right, but at the end of the day it just boils
down to shuffling profit around into tax years in such a way
as not to waste unused allowances (if profit is low-marginal)
or so as to avoid exceeding unnecessary thresholds (if profit
is high-marginal), and if you hire an accountant to help you
make the choice, having already decided to save money by doing
the basic accounts yourself, it may well be that the accountant
will be more expensive because he has first to "sort out" the
"unsatisfactory" DIY acccounts.

And while choosing 30th or even 6th April as your accounting
date will give you a whole extra year in which to sort out
your accounts and pay your tax, in practice it means you will
spend a whole extra 12 months procrastinating before you end
up in a mad rush because the deadline is imminent. Far better
to get it out of the way when things are still fresh in your
mind. Ideally you should have all your data ready on 6th April
to transfer to the tax return form as soon as it arrives.

IMHO, an accountant could be useful in these circumstances.

One would need to carry out a cost/benefit analysis.

In general, I guess it depends on whether you'd rather spend
a couple of evenings understanding the notes which accompany
the tax forms, or paying an accountant possibly more than his
advice will save you.

Maybe accountants should get into gimmick marketing along the
lines of no-win no-fee lawyers, so that punters cound hire them
with confidence that they won't cost them anything if they don't
save them anything.