Do it yourself self assesment or an accountant.

[Missy G]

Hi peeps,
Ok ive finally gone for it ,i leave my current part time job this week,as ive been uming and rrring weather to do about going self employed in a previous thread,well ive lined me self up some other permanant self employed work,and im also going to be doing my nails aswell as an extra,im looking at still working part time at the moment as i have a school run to do daily.but we ll see may be that will change.
What i want to know from you guys is how many of you do your self assesment yourself,is it pretty straight forward,i know i have to keep my reciepts for everything,and i have to record every treatment i do,but i dont know wether to do the s.a my self or call an accountant in,being as im only working part time would it be worth me calling in an accountant ?
Any other info would be greatly appreciated too...thankyou peeps..

 

[Susie H]

The government run a free course on how to fill in your self assessment form.
It will save you about £300 a year. Which is what you would pay a book keeper, accountants are higher qualified then book keepers, which you don't need as a sole trader.
Also unless you are very lucky all a book keeper or accountant will do is take your figures from your books and put them in the boxes on the form and file it for you, then give you his/her bill, most of them wont bother to say, oh you could have claimed for this or that and haven't. But if you go on the course you will know exactly what you can and can't claim for and at what %. My first year as a sole trader I used a local book keeper, handed him my cash book with all my receipts and assumed he would be checking my figures before filling in my forms. No he just put my totals in:irked: so my gross income of £25000 went in as my pre tax profit. Thankfully when I wrote to the tax office to ask for an appeal, the person who handled it knew how much I should have earned, agreed to have me come in with my books, spent 3 hours with me sorting it all out and put the proper figure in, which was £8000. I sent hubby on the course and he's done my books for me ever since and my tax bill for the last 3 years has been under £100 for the year. So I would say do them your self and keep control

 

[hippy-chick]

what I do is fill all my monthly figures in for expenditure on an excel sheet.
I print that off, hand it over to an accountant and he fills in my tax return.

I have been self-employed for 5 years now. The first year I got the tax office involved, they did a home visit and gave me lots of helpful booklets, and advised me on how to go about it all.

I then did a paper tax return at the tax office, I took my filled in excel sheets in, and the woman told me where to put what in the form. I got a tax rebate.

The next 2 years I did it online, but panicked when I got another tax rebate, so jiggled the figures so that I paid some tax.

This year I went to a recommended accountant, because I had done such a good job of record keeping on excel, and had all my receipts in labelled month envelopes, I only got charged £30 for him to fill in my tax return and I got a good tax rebate.

the most I have ever paid out is £250 because I have so many running costs.

 

[aliceellen1974]

i do my own and can honestly say that as long as you gather all your information to fill in your form its absolutely fine to do.

hth

jane

 

[Kayleighs Nail & Beauty Studio]

Hi i am self employed its my first few months in buisness i havnt doen a sel assessment yet but i was on a course on Tuesday for self assessment for the self employed as soon as you register they will send you course dates there is also starting as self employed(something along the lines) which is good tells you all about tax , NI ,asset allowances etc ..and you et a little certificate to say you have ben to the workshop.

Theres no problem with doing your self assssment yourself just keep all your paper work.

p.s : they are changing the self assessment forms for next year and apparently they are going to be layed out much btter so you can understand better . you can view the new self assessment forms for next year on hmrc.gov.uk

Hope that helps x

 

[Missy G]

Hi i am self employed its my first few months in buisness i havnt doen a sel assessment yet but i was on a course on Tuesday for self assessment for the self employed as soon as you register they will send you course dates there is also starting as self employed(something along the lines) which is good tells you all about tax , NI ,asset allowances etc ..and you et a little certificate to say you have ben to the workshop.

Theres no problem with doing your self assssment yourself just keep all your paper work.

p.s : they are changing the self assessment forms for next year and apparently they are going to be layed out much btter so you can understand better . you can view the new self assessment forms for next year on hmrc.gov.uk
Hope that helps x

Ok great thanks,i will do it on line,and id defintely attend the course, as im still not 100% sure on all the items i can claim tax back on,thanks for the advice.