Accountants in Stonebridge

Changing accountant mid-year is routine: you authorise the new firm, we write a professional clearance letter to the old one, records transfer, and HMRC authorisation moves online. Clients are usually surprised the whole thing needs almost nothing from them.

Compliance checks are usually specific: one return, one figure, one question. Answered promptly and with evidence, most close quickly. The expensive enquiries are the ones that started as unanswered letters.

Rental profits need reporting once they're more than trivial, and the rules differ for furnished holiday lets, rent-a-room and ordinary lets. Landlords are also in the first wave of Making Tax Digital — property income counts towards the £50,000 threshold.

HMRC runs nudge-letter campaigns to crypto holders based on exchange data. If there are undeclared gains in past years, a voluntary disclosure is dramatically cheaper than waiting for the letter — penalties are scaled to cooperation.

Limited companies in CIS reclaim differently to sole traders — through payroll or the company tax return rather than Self Assessment. Plenty of construction companies sit on refundable deductions without realising; a quick review of the CIS position often pays for itself immediately.

Online Self Assessment returns are due by 31 January, along with any balancing payment — and HMRC's £100 penalty applies the moment the deadline passes, even if you owe nothing. Most Stonebridge clients who come to us in January still file on time; the records just need to arrive before the last week.

Auto-enrolment applies from the first eligible employee: assess, enrol, contribute, declare. The Pensions Regulator does check, and the fines for ignoring it are out of proportion to how simple compliance actually is.

The first tax bill is the hardest because it can arrive with payments on account attached — up to 150% of the year's tax in one go. New businesses that save a quarter to a third of profits from day one never feel it.