Once you are happy to move to a new accountant follow the below steps:
- Inform your current accountant you are switching to a new Accountant.
- Pay all your outstanding invoices and obtain a disengagement letter to see all the work completed.
- Your new Accountant will write to request a professional clearance letter from your previous accountant. *
- Your new accountant will contact HMRC to assign authority to act as an agent on your behalf.
- Obtain an engagement letter from your new accountant, this is to ensure you know the services & fees to be paid.
*Professional Clearance is a reference request to inform the new accountant if the client has any HMRC investigation etc.
For any advice on setting up a company or to register as sole trader or partnership, contact us & we can give further advice.
For LTD company, you need to have a name in mind which is not used and have a registered office address; the trading address does not need to be same as registered office address. Once business is setup or registering as sole trader/partnership you need to register with HMRC and apply for Unique Tax Reference.
There are many ways to save tax which many are not aware of! For those with LTD companies setup and are shareholders, it would be beneficial to add your partner as shareholder which would help in terms of dividends distribution. (£2000 tax free for each shareholder).
For those in employment and married, would be worthwhile to apply for marriage allowance. Marriage allowance is a tax perk that benefits couples where one partner earns less than the personal allowance, some of their personal allowance can be distributed to their working partner.
If you are self-employed, you can claim lots of expenses that incur while running your business which can be deducted from your profits, reducing your overall tax. This could include items such as fuel, phone costs, or the running costs of your office if working from home.
Check out our resources page which should give further information. If you are still not sure, please contact our office where a member of team will be able to guide.
For all property income, make sure you keep a record of all income and expenses spent on the property including bills you contribute to. The accountant will then create a profit/loss to see how much profit or loss was made in the tax year.
If you are working and have property income, this will need to be submitted on your tax return to calculate the tax owed.
Below is HMRC guidelines on property income.
A company car is owned/leased by company used by employee for private and business use.
The company provides business fuel and maintenance cost, the business and private mileage needs to be kept separate.
HMRC definition of a pool car is … “Vehicle available for work purposes to more than one driver, and not used for any significant private activity.”
Criteria of pool car
- The car should be made available to more than one employees.
- The car should be made available for business.
- The car must not ordinarily be used by one employee to the exclusion of the other employees
- Any private use by the employee is merely incidental to the employee’s business use of the car.
- The car should be kept normally on business premises and it is not normally kept overnight on or in the vicinity of any of the residential premises of employees.
- Anyone using pool car must record: users/employees, vehicles areas and routes, overnight keeping etc.
Company car & pool car are both completely different, company car is for use by 1 employee and
can be used for business & private. Whereas for a pool car, the car is available to all employees and is kept overnight at business premises.