Tax return - what do you pay?

[macron]

Nosing/ curious, my long standing accountant has retired and sold up, the new lot have charged me exactly double his fee for the same work.

Yes costs up everywhere, no I don't want accountants to work for free before any of you get uppity, but what does a basic tax return cost you where you are? I have taken no more of their time, not had any advice, we're talking employment, self employed income, interest, divs, and a check of pension init amounts. All figures provided, nothing more than calculate using standard formulae, enter to tax return, ask me to sign, then bill.

£510 feels rather steep for that. What do you pay?

[Abc321]

Something as basic as you suggest, £210 - £230 I would charge.

(1 man band firm, fully remote, based in Sheffield)

[Blue62]

macron said:

Nosing/ curious, my long standing accountant has retired and sold up, the new lot have charged me exactly double his fee for the same work.

Yes costs up everywhere, no I don't want accountants to work for free before any of you get uppity, but what does a basic tax return cost you where you are? I have taken no more of their time, not had any advice, we're talking employment, self employed income, interest, divs, and a check of pension init amounts. All figures provided, nothing more than calculate using standard formulae, enter to tax return, ask me to sign, then bill.

£510 feels rather steep for that. What do you pay?

Just over £300 for me and Mrs Blue, now live in SW.

[Eric Mc]

Depends on how complex a person's tax return is and what work needs to be done to get the figures that need to be entered on the return.

Some are very straightforard. Some are a lot more complex.

[rdjohn]

Blue62 said:

Just over £300 for me and Mrs Blue, now live in SW.

£310 for both of ours. He is based in central Manchester.

He has done ours for over 20-years and this is the first time we have both gone Ouch! on the amount owing to HMRC on 31st January - a combination of freezing allowances and higher interest rates.

[macron]

Eric Mc said:

Depends on how complex a person's tax return is and what work needs to be done to get the figures that need to be entered on the return.

Some are very straightforard. Some are a lot more complex.

Obviously. In this case practically nothing needed to be done to translate, I've done this for a long time and could certainly do it myself. No questions were raised with what I submitted, it was straight to calculation and draft tax return needing no input or amendment. If a monkey is now the going rate so be it. But I am not sure it is.

[Abc321]

To play Devils Advocate - practicing fees, insurance and software, etc is increasingly expensive. I recently had a chap barter me down as it was 'extremely straightforward and will only take 10 minutes' but I think sometimes people don't see the time/costs around the work.

I appreciate this is in all trades and not just accountancy.

FWIW I agree £510 is very expensive for what you are describing.

[zedx19]

Sounds steep, I paid my accountant £360 2 weeks back:-

- SA return for me
- SA return for the wife
- Basic accounts for a small ebay business

I work full time as a Technical Director for a Construction firm, we have a small ebay based business on the side and a house we rent out, wife isn't in employment and looks after the 4 kids, volunteers at the school, chairs the PTFA etc. Send the accountant spreadsheets with all the info, he sends it back for me to check before submitting, takes him a couple of days.

[Eric Mc]

Abc321 said:

To play Devils Advocate - practicing fees, insurance and software, etc is increasingly expensive. I recently had a chap barter me down as it was 'extremely straightforward and will only take 10 minutes' but I think sometimes people don't see the time/costs around the work.

I appreciate this is in all trades and not just accountancy.

FWIW I agree £510 is very expensive for what you are describing.

My accounting and tax software is now horrendous. It's very good - but very, very expenses . It exceeds £10,000 oper annum.

[alscar]

For my wife’s and mine combined I pay £606 inc vat in total so would say yours by that measure is expensive.
We both in addition to your work list usually also have various share work / CGT work etc and I have various tax relief schemes.

[PM3]

macron said:

Nosing/ curious, my long standing accountant has retired and sold up, the new lot have charged me exactly double his fee for the same work.

Yes costs up everywhere, no I don't want accountants to work for free before any of you get uppity, but what does a basic tax return cost you where you are? I have taken no more of their time, not had any advice, we're talking employment, self employed income, interest, divs, and a check of pension init amounts. All figures provided, nothing more than calculate using standard formulae, enter to tax return, ask me to sign, then bill.

£510 feels rather steep for that. What do you pay?

I pay about the same ( a little more ) About same scope but advice given ( some fiddly overseas stuff )
Could I do it myself .....almost for sure. will I ? ...nope
Home counties

[AndyTR]

£200 plus VAT for my tax return, including accounts for the farm (self employment) and £150 for CGT return and advice following a company sale. Nice bunch based in Chapel Allerton in Leeds, been with them for 31 years and have a good relationship. Dropped the ball a couple of times, rectified quickly and apologised. Recommend them.

[Mr Pointy]

For annual accounts for a one man sole trader & personal tax return I get stung for £1500+VAT & that's after threateening to move away from them. I think this is the last year I use them.

[gotoPzero]

£300 ish for 2 people. Am thinking I will DIY it from this year.

[cml24]

I don't want this to come across the wrong way, but what do you get for the money? Presumably if you're asking for actual financial advice, that's different and costs more. But if its just help filling out the form, can it not be done yourself?

When I worked abroad our company paid for an accountant to help us, but not sure it added anything, and you signed to say it was all your fault regardless, so I rechecked everything that was entered.

[Sheepshanks]

If it's straighforward, and there no advice requested / offered then I'm a little baffled by why people don't do it themselves - I'd rather be in control of it.

The only thing I found a bit tricky this time was capital gains, which was a one off - it wasn't obvious where to put some of the figures, but if the combination is wrong, it won't let you go past the page. I knew what the tax should be, and it came out correct.

Doing them myself gave the opportunity to see the tax calculations before submission so I moved interest (technically the underlying funds) around between us in our joint account. It worked out better for it all to be on wife's SA as we'd paid her entire salary into a SIPP so her higher rate threshold was bumped up a lot.

[Countdown]

cml24 said:

But if its just help filling out the form, can it not be done yourself?
.

It really depends on how complicated your financial situation is.

For example if you're mainly PAYE with some rental income then it's relatively straightforward. However if you're

- a powerfully built director with multiple employments
- a partner in another busness
- paying chunks into a pension fund
- investing in EIS/VCT
- donating to charities
- subject to HIBC
- lots of capital gains to declare

then unless you're very experienced it's probably more efficient to get a professional to do it.

It's a bit like working on your own car. Some of us can barely check the tyre pressures whereas others can swap out an engine. It just depends on your experience and confidence.

[Countdown]

Sheepshanks said:

Doing them myself gave the opportunity to see the tax calculations before submission so I moved interest (technically the underlying funds) around between us in our joint account. It worked out better for it all to be on wife's SA as we'd paid her entire salary into a SIPP so her higher rate threshold was bumped up a lot.

Happy to be corrected but I didn't think you could choose how the interest from a joint account was split. i thought it was always 50/50 ?

[jock mcsporran]

I’ve generally done it myself. £36 for TaxCalc download. I used to use a very good guy but the same thing happened, bought over, prices doubled and service halved, so I got a copy of my return and started doing it myself.

10 mins work if I just transfer over previous years and update the figures, maybe a couple of hours when I had share dividend, redundancy, AVC’s and split year treatment.

[macron]

cml24 said:

I don't want this to come across the wrong way, but what do you get for the money? Presumably if you're asking for actual financial advice, that's different and costs more. But if its just help filling out the form, can it not be done yourself?

Indeed, nothing asked for this year, in previous years, possibly because of being a small business, the accountant was very flexible and would give quick discussions/ act as a sounding board with no charge. The new lot appear to be very much on the clock, and I cannot equate this charge to the work that has been done.

I have queried the sum, but will pay it, and will at best use someone else next year, or just do it myself.