Simple planning does not have to be complicated but your accountant does need to understand your circumstances and to be able to know how to act on the information available. More importantly one needs to know when there is an issue and who can help best. Best explained by two examples. Advising on a simple start up situation and preparing the first year’s figures. Being at the customers premises and discussing more than the first years figures, we amended the year end to assist cash flow. (No tax to pay for at least 2 years and plenty of warning possible when tax starts to kick in).. At the same meeting discussed items introduced into the business. One reply given, a few questions latter and the figure was some £3000 higher. Without being there, and discussing matters directly this would have been missed and the customer would have lost their tax free status. At the other end of the spectrum one of my clients was undertaking considerable Research and Development expenditure. A special claim was considered possible and we undertook an initial assessment. Once the basics were agreed we persuaded the client to bring in one of our strategic partners. With their expert knowledge of the subject and their knowledge of the Inland Revenue’s attitude to same,, they where able to approximately double the claim we had estimated.
