Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Self employed, looking for new accountant (I think) for taxes

  • 13-12-2017 1:47pm
    #1
    Wildcard7
    Closed Accounts Posts: 302 ✭✭


    Hi there,

    I'm a self employed IT tech, working from my home office. 99.9% of my income comes from one customer (my former employer, a small company in another country). Once or twice a year I do a tiny job for another customer. One bill goes out to the customer goes out every month, one payment comes in, some of my car and house expenses are deductible as I use them for work. A few other expenses like IT equipment and software licenses. Pretty straight forward situation I'd assume.

    I'm currently quite unhappy with our accountant. My wife prepares all bank statements, utility statements etc and breaks down every transaction in a number of Excel sheets, exactly the way our accountant requests it. Still our accountant charges us about 2k (that's before VAT) to do our taxes every year. There is no indication on the bill as to what the hourly rate is, or which item on the bill took up how much time. She also takes weeks to reply to any inquiry, and even though we ask her every year to do our taxes as soon as possible (so we can put a lid on it and know how much money is actually in our pockets), it's always October by the time we have definite numbers.

    She also gave us wrong information in the past which meant we ended up having to pay a lot more taxes than we thought, which put us in a tight spot financially. We asked her to clarify why she gave us that information and whether the old or the new information is accurate. The reply was pretty much "the new information is correct, you owe the money". Not even so much as a "sorry". On this years bill we have an item for this very conversation, so she actually billed us for looking into the fact that she was wrong with the information she gave us first.

    By this stage, I'm feeling ripped off by this accountant, and I also have a hard time trusting her advice. I also read on Boards before that other self employed people would expect to pay around 500.- for an accountant to do their taxes. I have no clue as to what's an appropriate number, but if I assume an hourly rate of 100.-, then it took my accountant 20 hours to turn what we gave her into what she gave us (the tax statements), which sounds way off. I don't want to skimp on paying an accountant, because generally that's money well spent, but I don't want to be ripped off either.

    So, long story short. Am I being ripped off? Is 2k unreasonable for the amount of work outlined above? Is there another accountant around Bray or Wicklow that anyone could recommend?

    Thank you!


Comments

  • #2
    Immy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 260 ✭✭Immy


    From the sounds of it I think you are ripped off


  • #3
    thegolfer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 346 ✭✭thegolfer


    Absolutely being ripped off.


  • #4
    Purple Mountain
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,364 ✭✭✭✭Purple Mountain


    Is she an accountant or book keeper?
    Sounds like with a bit of research and mentoring your wife could do your return no bother.

    To thine own self be true



  • #5
    L.Jenkins
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 19,241 Mod ✭✭✭✭L.Jenkins


    €2,000 a year to calculate VAT3s and your Annual RTD is somewhat ridiculous. I know of Accountants that would charge less to take you on as a client, register you as a client on ROS and file the mentioned online for you.

    Now that might be a reasonable reasonable price if they were doing the entire calculation including the bookkeeping activity on your behalf, but if your wife does most of the work, then €2,000 is way too much, especially if your Accountant delays communication and gets it wrong on occasion.


  • #6
    Wildcard7
    Closed Accounts Posts: 302 ✭✭Wildcard7


    Thanks for all the replies. She only does the accountant work, my wife does the bookkeeping. Sounds like we should definitely look for someone new.

    Also thanks for all the PMs from accountants. I won't reply to them all, but I will keep your info and might come back to you.


  • Advertisement
  • #7
    LizardKing
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,599 ✭✭✭LizardKing


    Wildcard7 wrote: »
    Thanks for all the replies. She only does the accountant work, my wife does the bookkeeping. Sounds like we should definitely look for someone new.

    Also thanks for all the PMs from accountants. I won't reply to them all, but I will keep your info and might come back to you.

    Go talk to these and see what they would charge. No obligation to go with them but may give a good idea to compare

    https://www.taxassist.ie/accountants/wicklow/


Advertisement