A sole practitioner accountant and the minimum wage

Andy Atkins is an elderly accountant operating from offices above a shop in a small town. 

One day he received a letter from HMRC, stating that they suspected he was not paying his employees the National Minimum Wage and they would send an inspector to interview them. 

On the appointed day, the inspector turned up. "Tell me about your staff," he asked Andy. 

"Well," said Andy, "there's my accounting trainee, I pay him £240 a week, and cover the costs of his training. 

Then there's my PA. She gets £190 a week, along with free board and lodging in the flat above the office. 

There's also the half-wit. He works a 16 hour day, does 90% of the work, earns about £25 a week, along with a bottle of whisky, and as a special treat occasionally gets to sleep with my wife." 

"That's disgraceful" said the inspector, “I need to interview the half-wit." 

"That'll be me then," said Andy.

Check the fundamentals when recruiting finance staff

The company personnel department had carefully interviewed dozens of people for the job of assistant to the financial director.

The head of HR thought that one candidate - Stuart - seemed ideal.

Stuart had been to a major public school. He wasn't a qualified accountant but did have a masters degree in business administration. He satisfied all of the psychological profile checks the company employed and generally impressed the head of HR.

The FD conducted the second interview after checking the notes from the first one and also Stuart's Linkedin profile. All was going well until.....

'Stuart,' said the FD, I've decided to offer you the job. And as you've impressed us so much I'm happy to start you off on a slightly higher salary than the one advertised. We'll pay you £36,000 a year.

'Thank you,' replied Stuart. 'But how much is that per month?

Greeting card message for retiring tax partner

 Message seen on the front of a greeting card given to a tax partner on his retirement from a sizeable firm of accountants:

All I ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work.

Ten annoying myths about accountancy

1. Accounting is just about maths
2. Accounting services are expensive
3. Accountants are boring
4. Accounting is all about helping clients pay less tax
5. It's important to have an accounting degree before you start
6. Tax is payable by reference to turnover (rather than profit)
7. Profit and cash are the same
8. If there's money in the bank we must be doing alright
9. You don't need an accountant if you use Xero or QBO
10. Accountants all make loads of money and are loaded

Credit to AAT for their recent social media activity that generated the above suggestions.

Things that could be said to your accountant but not to your partner

First the cleaner ones:

• Can I claim this as an expense? 
• I've done a couple of things I shouldn't have done but it's best I don't tell you. 
• Is there any chance of a discount if I recommend you to a friend? 
• I am afraid your assets are not very impressive 
• Do you charge by the number of transactions, or is it one set fee for the entire relationship? 
• How much do you charge an hour? 
• You're very experienced, is that why you charge so much? 
• Is there any interest? I used to get more interest a few years ago. 
• How much? 

Now the others:

• Has it gone up or down? 
• You don't like nice round figures, do you? 
• If I enter this correctly, do you think I would get relief? 
• I can remember when everything balanced... 
• My! that's a big ledger.
• I’ll fill this one in. 
• Are there any penalties for early withdrawal? 
• I could work on a good column entry for ages. 
• I'd like one of my business associates to have a look at that before I agree to it. 
• I’m thinking of leaving it in there for a good few years. 
• What do you know about roll-over relief? 
• I’m worried about losing interest if I withdraw. 
• If we do it the other way, can I still get relief? 
• You are taking out more than you are putting in. 
• You're very experienced, is that why you charge so much?

12 things HMRC will never say....

12 things HMRC will never say:

1. “After reviewing your contract, I consider you’re self employed.”
2.  “Considering the length of time it has taken me to reply to your letter it is only fair that I give you 18 months to reply to mine.
3. "I like you. On this occasion I’m going to let you off and chalk it up to experience".
4. “Given the complexities of the legislation that is a mistake anyone could have made so I won’t be looking to charge a penalty.”
5. “Following the recent Tribunal decision confirming that we have been incorrectly applying tax legislation to your circumstances, we can now concede that we are wrong and have accordingly charged ourselves a penalty for our carelessness in failing to take advice from an appropriately qualified tax professional.”
6. “That might be what the legislation says but it seems incredibly unfair so we’ll take a pragmatic view”
7. "You're right, we don't have unlimited powers to ask for anything we feel like"
8. "It looks like we were wrong after all. Please accept our apologies and a payment of £50 to cover any distress and inconvenience caused to you and/or your business".
9. "Let’s be pragmatic about this"
10. "It's OK we'll reimburse your clients costs as this was a training exercise and we found nothing"
11. “You’re right, in this instance the Opinion given had no legal authority underpinning some of the claims, and some of the facts we asserted also had no cogent evidence to support them. We were winging it in the hope you would not notice and just pay. We are sorry and the matter is now closed.”
12. "We have just received your letter and will reply within a month, which is well ahead of our target of 121 days".

With thanks and credit to Philip Ridgway for starting this discussion and seeking further suggestions on Linkedin

10 things you will never hear a decent accountant say

 

1. Yes, my fees could be lower if you pay me in cash 
2. Yes, I'll find a way to justify all those supermarket receipts in your accounts
3. Sure you can pay me less because you ignored my advice on how to make more profits 
4. HMRC have no problem with retrospective tax planning
5. Your tax return only took me 5 minutes to do 
6. I love working from carrier bags full of clients' paperwork
7. I have decided not to charge you anything this year
8. The taxman will give up once he knows I'm representing you
9. Don't worry about getting receipts 
10. Yes, we can rewrite the past and pretend you did things that you didn't really do 

Any more for any more? What else would you never say?