Hi everyone, Just wondering what you guys do out there............if you are preparing a sole traders accounts (self employed), do you prepare it so they can just pick the right information and put it into their tax return on the self employed page? Or do you prepare P&L based on whatever their costs are even if disallowable for tax? Then do another tax calculation one? Or do your clients take your p&l and get someone else to do make it tax compliant? Hope what I am asking makes sense... xxx
My clients have accountants who take the P&L from Sage and do the years accounts by sometimes munipulating the figures and I do the same for my husbands business. But you do need to be aware of disallowable expenses and put them on (RH column of HMRC allowable business expenses) and the take them off in LH column if needed,and of course you need to work out the capital allowances to calculate the taxable profit or net business loss.
Sue
-- Edited by Sue T on Tuesday 13th of April 2010 10:57:16 PM
Hi Sue, thanks for your reply. I am just doing the accounts in Excel as there are not many transactions and the client does not have any software package. They dont really need one. But I guess I need to split out their costs for tax purposes but just trying to think of the best way. ie...depreciation or capital allowance calculation......travel costs vs mileage allowance......etc......... Cheers for your reply.
I do sole traders accounts and prepare income & expenditure accounts or if using sage print off a P & L. I will then fil in their tax return. I leave Ltd co accounts to their accountants.
what I do is prepare the profit and loss a/c, then do the calcs after this, I keep a hard copy of my profit and loss and also tax calc. It does depend on whether the accountant is doing the tax return or if you are.
I also give a copy of the p & l to the client and a copy of their tax return and ask them to sign them off ready for me to do the tax return online.
If it just a small sole trader this should be enough.
Oh, I normally leave out disallowed expenses as I'm puttting through the receipts, as I normally take on a box off receipts from sole traders and do it all including the tax return.
-- Edited by lor on Thursday 15th of April 2010 11:26:53 AM