I am near to completing a paper copy tax return. What I need to know is can I sign the declaration at the end as her bookkeeper or do I need to send it back to her for her to sign. I normally send online so this is never a problem.
Unfortunately not, and neither would you want to really.
HMRC's Statement of Practice basically says that the declaration must be made by the taxpayer and that, under normal circumstances, they insist this be the case.
There are exceptions for rare circumstances, such as the taxpayer not being of sound mind... etc.
If you were able to sign on behalf of the client you would likely therefore be accepting personal responsibilty for mistakes and omissions and that would be very unpleasant.
As a separate point of note, you do still need to get a tax return signed by the client if you're submitting them online and keep it in your file. If there's a mistake in the return because the client didn't tell you something, you wouldn't be able to prove that they'd authorised the return (and that it's therfore their fault) and they may be able to make a claim against you.
Unfortunately not, and neither would you want to really.
HMRC's Statement of Practice basically says that the declaration must be made by the taxpayer and that, under normal circumstances, they insist this be the case.
There are exceptions for rare circumstances, such as the taxpayer not being of sound mind... etc.
If you were able to sign on behalf of the client you would likely therefore be accepting personal responsibilty for mistakes and omissions and that would be very unpleasant.
As a separate point of note, you do still need to get a tax return signed by the client if you're submitting them online and keep it in your file. If there's a mistake in the return because the client didn't tell you something, you wouldn't be able to prove that they'd authorised the return (and that it's therfore their fault) and they may be able to make a claim against you.
Hope that helps!
Mike.
Actually you just need written authorisation. An email confirmation is sufficient.
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Thank you so much for your input because I didn't think about that at all. I have only just started out and only have a couple of clients so not really had much practice. From now on I will make sure I get everything signed off.
Thank goodness for the bookkeepers forum I don't know where I would be.
