I feel so bloody grown up
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- ********
I now have my very own accountant.
Ive been freelancing for almost a fecking year and have been kept awake at night by thoughts of taxmen knocking on my door. I am utterly useless at organising paper work and administration, but have been too busy to source a good accountant.
Well I had a good meeting this morning and now employ one. I feel like I can breathe again.
I strongly recommend getting one if you havent already, Im probly the only twat on here that didnt have one though.Go me!
- ********0
where are you based from?
- boobs0
I'm based at home, but, except for rent, I have all the regular expenses: computers, software, hosting, phone, professional organizations, etc., etc..
I'm just saying that you have to track your time to do your billing anyway, it doesn't take that much more work to track your expenses (as a freelancer, there aren't that many...). And once you've tracked both of those, software like TurboTax will tell you what you owe in taxes.
I have a friend who has almost the same business as me, and he spends $800/year on his accountant. To me, that's an amount worth saving by doing it yourself. YMMV.
Now, if the figure was $200/year, I'd do it differently.
- ********0
I sailed on for years without an accountant, and without filling out tax returns properly. I thought I knew what I was doing. I kept receipts, I kept an accurate record of income and expenditure, and I filed every year.
I had a few years of insanely profitable business and made a fortune in a very short space of time. I then learned, 12 months later, that you have an obligation to register for VAT at the exact moment your earnings go over the VAT threshold.
I had exceeded the vat threshold fourfold and had not charged anyone any VAT. So I suddenly discovered, in a blind panic, that I had a huge VAT bill to pay, and that it was payable immediately with no possible room for time or payment negotiation.
I had to go to an accountant. In trying to sort the mess out, the accountant had to go back over all my previous years tax returns. It transpired that I had not done them correctly at all and the whole lot had to be re-done. It was painful and terrifying. It felt like a tight knot of string that could never be undone.
It was eventually unravelled and put straight but I would not want to ever go through that again. It nearly sent me over the edge.
I was lucky that all of my clients agreed to retrospectively pay me all of the VAT I should have charged them all along, but they would have been quite within their rights to tell me to go forth. I'm talking about many tens of thousands of pounds. Even my ex-business partner who I was no longer in regular contact with very kindly paid me about 20k in VAT that I should have invoiced due to the way we had set the company up.
Prior to the VAT issue I was convinced, utterly convinced, that my tax affairs were all in order and above board. My accountant worked out that I had in fact been over-paying tax because I hadn't made use of various tax benefits. Its a complicated procedure and for anyone to be doing properly on their own they would probably have to spend as much time keeping up to date about tax affairs as they spend doing their work.
I understand the tax system very well, but I would never ever attempt to work without an accountant again. Its crazy to do that. They know about stuff that is financially in your interest that you could not possibly know about, and as a result they can save you a small fortune in tax... not through any high risk semi-ethical practices, just via knowledge of the ever changing tax procedure and the many things out there that can be offset or deducted.
Get an accountant Boobs. I guarantee you that the decrease in your tax bill will more than compensate for the nominal fee you have to pay them. Plus, it cuts the time you have to spend dealing with your taxes and paperwork down to about 5% of what you're probably spending right now if you're really doing it correctly.
- Just woken up, got your eem, will respond later on when I've awoken properly, old boy
xdetritus - Well, I'm in US, and we don't have VAT here.boobs
- jesus sounds like some pain in the ass orbit! insane that your old clients happily paid all that vat! I wonder would they be as happy to fork out the vat at the moment? hehejimzy
- ...happy to fork out the vat at the moment? hehejimzy
- Well the odd thing about VAT is that as long as they are registered, they can just claim it back...********
- so thankfully it didn't cost them anything, but the could still have refused to pay me to save themselves the added hassle.********
- ah i see so no real cost to them then. cool enough. but what a headache for you i can imagine!jimzy
- Just woken up, got your eem, will respond later on when I've awoken properly, old boy
- ********0
Iv'e had one for about 3 years, shes great. We slept together last xmas after we went out for drinks though so a little akward since then! lol
- HAHAHAHAHAAHAH.
Was that tax deductible by the way?******** - More to the point... could you recommend her services?
;)******** - good work.
sexual favour discounts.jimzy - haha I think she logged how long I lasted in her account book!********
- Small accountancy bill that year then eh?
Teehee.******** - lol something like that mate :D********
- HAHAHAHAHAAHAH.
- detritus0
Depends on how smart your accountant is, I guess. Half the point with bringing in external help is to actually save money - if you've a good accountant, $800 a year should fairly easilyy sublimate into otherwise paid-for costs (aka savings).
Unless, of course, you know care to know all that shit yourself - personally, I find it beyond dull.
- Its beyond dull doing it oneself, but I find it fascinating to go and see my accountant to watch him...********
- work it all out properly.********
- Its beyond dull doing it oneself, but I find it fascinating to go and see my accountant to watch him...
- boobs0
Don't get me wrong. There's definitely a level of business where I would definitely have an accountant. If I got to the point where I had employees, and was starting to deal with that mess, I would get one. But, being on my own, with only a couple invoices going out each week, and not much in expenses to track, it's not that hard to do on my own.
Honestly, the taxes aspects of home ownership and setting aside money for retirement take up much more work and effort than the tax aspects of my business. YMMV.
- ********0
There is always the Enron method too... claim massive tax deductions now, based on the massive amount of expenditure you will incur over the next twenty years. Then collapse.
- Oh god, I just collapsed.********
- lol pretty solid plan. thats what I call living for the moment********
- Oh god, I just collapsed.
- ********0
Obviously it all depends on how busy you are and if you can be bothered to add on top of that time to get all your accounts together. For me it works out great, its not really that much of an expense and saves time hassle and as detritus says the sheer dullness of it all.
- JerseyRaindog0
Hmmm, tax? VAT? I've heard of that.
- Aye, shutit you - how're your house prices getting on? }:)detritus
- ********0
Yeah, he is relatively cheap, I spend half my time doing admin so for him to handle everything is a dream. Also I dunno what the US tax system is like , but im based in holland, dutch is not my first language by any means and it makes it that much harder. also the belastingdienst/tax office reminds me of those guys from hitchhikers guide- everything in triplecate etc. they are tight arsed to the max.
all in all its worth it. peace of mind.- God almighty I can think of nothing more hellish than trying to deal with dutch tax officials.********
- I left my jacket in Schiphol airport once and the bureaucracy I faced to get it back almost killed me.********
- I left it there in the end. It was a nice jacket too.********
- I lost my favourite jumper in the airport in Goa, I know your pain!********
- i lost loads of jackets when really pissed.jimzy
- : (jimzy
- God almighty I can think of nothing more hellish than trying to deal with dutch tax officials.
- ********0
@ Orbit - once i went through schipol with a belt which had empty bullet cases as the buckle-wait i borrowed it from flatmate cause mine broke-OMG they wanted to arrest me, i mean what the fuck can i do with 3 empty shells? smuggle gunpowder in my ass, use a grannys gold tooth and wittle a gun out of the meal tray? tsk tsk. think im a marked man now, the cops took down all my details and questioned me like crazy.
oh whats also amazing is when u phone the belastiengdienst, and speak english, they tell you they are forbidden to speak english. I mean sure, make sure the 'natives' aredoing well and all but i pay alot of tax and make the goverment money, why would the forbid their people to talk english if they actualy can. man it fucks me off so much
- joelski0
I just started using xero.com its the bomb...keeps all my shit orgianised my accountant can even login and check up...seriously you have to jump on this..have to have accountant...I spend 2k a year on mine...I would rather pay him then the tax man...he saved me so much dosh...my one before him was a knob...though...now I got zero I should be on top of shit though...I aways pay my tax and make returns ontime...don't want that shit hanging over you
- yeah i signed up for online thingy last night, cant remember what its called off hand, it was suggested on some thread here********
- yeah i signed up for online thingy last night, cant remember what its called off hand, it was suggested on some thread here