CIS tax returns in Temple Fortune — from £30/mo, fixed.

Every tax bill is predictable months in advance — which makes tax the most plannable cost a business has. A separate tax savings account, fed a fixed percentage of every sale, converts January from a crisis into a transfer.

UK residential property sales have their own regime: report and pay within 60 days of completion, separately from Self Assessment. Other gains report annually. Mixing up the two timetables is a common and expensive mistake.

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.

Since Section 24, individual landlords can't deduct mortgage interest as an expense — it's a 20% tax credit instead, which pushes some higher-rate landlords into surprising bills. Whether to hold property personally or through a company is now a genuine question with genuine trade-offs.

The honest answer changes with your profits. At lower profits, sole trader simplicity usually wins; as profits grow, a limited company's mix of salary and dividends, corporation tax rates and liability protection starts earning its extra admin. We run the actual numbers before recommending either.

The tax-free dividend allowance is down to £500, so almost any director taking dividends now pays some dividend tax — and needs a Self Assessment return to report it. The classic small-salary-plus-dividends strategy still works; it just needs actual planning rather than folklore.

The expenses rule is "wholly and exclusively" for the trade — which covers more than most people claim (proportionate home-working costs, business mileage, software subscriptions) and less than some hope (client entertaining, everyday clothing). Knowing the line is where the savings live.

Compare accountants on the things that bite later: is the fee fixed and written down, what exactly is included, who does the work, how fast do they answer in January. Proximity to Temple Fortune stopped being the differentiator the day filings went electronic.