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Do I need accountant after registering LTD
mustafamw3
Member, Patron Provider
in Help
Hi
I planing to convert my sole trader into ltd
Do I need accountant after registering?
Is it hard to file tax returns in uk?
How can I learn accounting?
Best regards
Comments
Hey buddy. I'm from India, so the rules might vary a bit but when you register a company, you require an accountant to prepare financials (accounting entries, cash books balance sheets etc) which is done electronically these days, and then you get it certified with a professional like Chartered Accountant in India or for example (I think) a CPA in the USA and the equivalent in your country!
P.S: most of the rules pertaining to incorporation of companies, rules and regulations in India were practically copied from the British Companies Act so I presume it would be on the same principle!
You don't need one, but for how cheap it is to have one, it's well worth it. If I didn't have one, I'd know for sure I would've missed out on a lot of tax savings that mine sorted for me. There's also so many different forms and reminders you have to keep track of that it's just worth the peace of mind to have someone else do it for you, especially if it's not something you've done before.
Keep in mind you still have to fill out self assessments for yourself too, and they'll usually handle that for you.
Providing you aren't paying VAT, the tax savings made it cheaper for me to be registered and pay an accountant monthly than it was to be a sole trader doing tax myself (or paying an accountant to do your self assessment)
How much it costs to hire accountant?
People on forums can't do all the work for you.
Call some accountants and ask their rates.
Thanks, you're right, please close the thread
I would definitely recommend having an accountant in the UK to help file your taxes with HMRC, as well as communicate with Companies House.
Just like everything else, you could do it yourself - but they (usually!) know exactly what they're doing, when it needs to be done by etc...
For a small Ltd and a good accountant, it should be in the region of £1,000 a year for corporate filling, payroll, and personal tax return to HMRC. VAT fillings and PAYE would typically cost more.
Wow, that's a lot. But as Europeans like to boast, "regulation is our superpower"
I contacted accountant company, they said they will do it for 79,99 pound per month
You don't need an accountant – it's pretty easy and straightforward to file taxes and returns yourself. However, that being said – I know a few folks who utilise their business bank account and save their receipts/invoices and then use a service like https://taxscouts.com/ a month or so prior to the end of the tax year to compile all the data you provide and they'll file, for a small business, that's all that is needed, rather than an on-going monthly fee that usually works out more expensive.
I might be wrong, but https://taxscouts.com/ looks like it's just for personal tax returns. Apart from some hassle because I hadn't yet got my personal UTR when I tried to do it in early December, it was easy to do myself. Took me about 2 hours to gather all the information I needed (which you'd need to do anyway, even if someone else is doing it) and then less than another hour to fill in the form online. Also, gathering my information was probably the most hassle, as I had a quite a few US stock dividends in multiple broker accounts, so it took a while to make sure I'd got them all, so for most people it'll be much quicker.
I'm also planning to submit my company accounts myself, but it helps that I have some friends who are accountants, so I'll get them to look over it before I submit, but I won't ask them to do any of the actual preparation work. I might change my mind though in the next couple of months, but I've been pretty anal about keeping good accounts and making sure every transaction has been entered, so I'm expecting it to be pretty easy.
I've never used TS personally as I have an accountant – for reference, I just plucked a random result from Google 🙂.
Honestly, as long as you use a bank account specifically for business use and you keep a record of expenses/receipts and invoices, etc – you're all good.
I also want to open an LTD in the UK, but as a non-resident. Can an accountant represent me at HMRC?
Also, can there be tax compliance checks for a non-resident business? How are these carried out? I don't want to circumvent the law, I just want to make sure I'm following it.
You can open a Limited company in the UK even if you aren't a resident – it's the same form, the same questions.
You won't be circumventing the law. In any case, you still have to fill in the forms yourself and/or accept liability for whatever your accountant does on your behalf.
OTOH, I'm interested why you specifically want to open a UK company as a non-resident rather than in your own country. It sounds like more hassle to me, and there are few countries where it will be a tax advantage to do so - in most countries that have tax treaties with the UK, you'll just pay the necessary taxes in the UK, and then be subject to the difference between that and what you would have earned in the country where you're a resident.
I know of at least one provider here who pretends to operate a UK company, advertises prices in GBP, and proudly lists his company number on his website... but then when you place an order on that site (also a .co.uk website), you actually get an invoice from an Indian company instead. That is straight up fraud. Please don't do that. It also violates the GDPR as all your personal details are immediately passed to a foreign company, and this isn't stated anywhere in their privacy policy, because they are pretending to be a legitimate UK company.
I would suggest going to the GOV website to get your answers.
You will get plenty of information there but from my experince there is a portal which will allow you to do what you need.
Ou, pumping up those reps for offers maybe? It would be nice to receive some offers from good old leaseweb
Haha, Glad you called us good