Accountants in Knowls Lane

People stay with the wrong accountant for years because switching feels disruptive. In practice the profession has a standard handover process — clearance letters, copies of prior returns and working papers — and the new firm drives it, not you.

The capital gains annual exempt amount has shrunk to £3,000, which pulls far more ordinary disposals — shares, crypto, second properties — into reporting territory. Gains that once fell under the allowance now need a return, even when the tax due is modest.

Most self-employed people under-claim. Use of home, mileage at HMRC's approved rates, phone and broadband apportionment, trade subscriptions, training that updates existing skills — legitimate deductions left on the table add up to real tax overpaid year after year.

Ask any prospective accountant two questions: "what's included in the fee?" and "what costs extra?" The quality of those two answers predicts the whole relationship.

Crypto traders rack up hundreds of taxable events without noticing, because every swap counts as a disposal. Specialist software plus the pooling rules turns the mess into a number; guessing does not.

The July payment on account is the forgotten deadline: no return is due, but money often is. We diary it for every client it applies to, because HMRC charges interest from the day it's late even though nothing was "filed" late.

The best salary-dividend mix moves with each year's thresholds and your other income. Setting it once in April — rather than guessing through the year — is one of the simplest pieces of planning a director can do.

First-year traders around Knowls Lane tend to make the same three mistakes: registering late, mixing business and personal spending in one account, and saving nothing for the first tax bill. All three are avoidable in an afternoon of setup.