ToGC ... or not?

But your accounts would look silly if you decided not to claim capital allowances.

No they wouldn't, because whether or not you claim CAs has no bearing on what your accounts look like. OK, perhaps it depends what you mean by "accounts", and in this context I mean P&L and B/S. CAs don't feature in them. The CA computation is separate from "the accounts", but both it and they feed into the income tax computation.

I wasn't suggesting one should not claim CAs (unless doing so would be counterproductive, i.e. not save tax). I was merely pointing out that if one did claim them, and if one weren't particularly bothered about one's balance sheet reflecting a realistic estimate of the value of one's depreciating assets, then it is perfectly OK to use the CA writing down rules as the basis for doing the depreciation computation within the balance sheet, thus obviating the need to keep track of the CA WDV separately.

I know exactly what you said and meant. I was merely pointing out that if somebody used the capital allowances claimed as the depreciation then if you didn't claim capital allowances (for either sensible tax reasons or because you forgot) then your accounts would look weird for not having any depreciation.

Is it so onerous for some people to keep track of depreciation and capital allowances?

Payslips? The P60 and P11Ds are done at the same time as the P35. Nicely done fore you online.

Not a huge amount, but every little bit helps.

That's your opinion. In some respects it's easier because there's one time of the year you do your personal tax return, another to do the company PAYE, and another for time for Company return and corporation tax. If you have a proforma return it's not exacly rocket science, the worst is to calculate corporation tax when it's split over two different April-March tax rates. But even then the online CT600 does the calculation for you.

I disagree with you. It gives you more control what you do with your money.

What's wrong with leaving the money in the company. There's also a fair degree of certainty that you might get visited for one year but not for a couple after that. That's becomes the window of opportunity to take dividend! The value of your company is excluded from any CSA calculations, unlike any other capital (apart from your home).

Of course, one very minor point, if you make a capital investment whilst self employed, the CSA don't take it into account and it counts as income, They also don't factor in any capital allowances, so it's lose out and then lose out a bit more. Also a perk like a vehicle is paid for by the sompany so you draw less income. The notional tax you pay on your perk further reduces your net income so you pay even less to the CSA!

All in all I disagree with you. You have your opinion and mine works well for me.

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Yes, payslips, those documents that are illegal not to prepare.

Is it wise to prepare your company accounts and personal tax at different times? How do you ensure you are tax efficient overall?

Anybody can complete a tax return but it takes somebody knowledgeable and experienced to use the correct figures!

You are seriously deluded if you think that the worst is to calculate tax when it's split over two rates.

Did I suggest there was anything wrong with leaving money in the company?

I must admit I don't know anything about the CSA calculations!

Of course you disagree with me and you think that your opinion works well for you.

I hope you have enough common sense to realise that quite often some people have more knowledge and experience in certain subjects to have better judgement than other people.

Ooops - I lost thse payslips I prepared for myself ! Tut

This is my point. Even of you might save your client some money, the actual saving in tax would be modest and more than offset by his fees. If the client's income is such that he's entering the higher rates of corporate tax then I would now agree with you, but this is rarely the case with anyone considering doing their own returns. Similarly if the client makes a loss, an accountant's advice would be valuable.

No - this is where you are going very wrong. It should be clear to most savvy people how to add and subtract to work out profit, capital allowances etc. It is not rocket science.

You can think of something worse in a return? Capital allowances split over

So you don't disagree here then?

Yes - do you? You only see people who don't want to - or simply can't do their return. There's a lot of us out here who can and do.

You haven't actually given any examples when it would be beneficial to be s/e! Apart from one set of tax calculations.

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Have you got dividend vouchers, minutes and management accounts for amounts you paid to yourself other than salary? Maybe HMRC will class the payments as salary?

Do you know how to calculate the use of home as an office? Can you give a few examples of how you may do it?

If you are self employed you can spend any money on anything you want. If you have a limited company you are not able to do that. There are certain rules and procedures you have to follow and you may not be allowed to use that money for certain things.

So I disagree with you.

Any minutes can be created at a moment's notice! Yes the account details should make it very clear what the payments are. It's easy to have 2 headings. One being director's remuneration and the other dividend.

Hmm - tricky. In the past I have used a figure of 25 of rent where a dining area has been used as a workshop / lab and office with some mixed personal use. Will you'll say that's too high?

Agreed, but you can spend your personal money on anything you like! I'm not sure what you're trying to get at? Generally expenses allowed in s/e accounts are allowed in Ltd accounts!

No - but anything to make things simpler is surely a good thing, why do you want to make things more complicated than they need to be?

Does that mean you will be writing assets off as soon as they are bought?

oups.com...

HMRC will not make their decision on whether a payment is remuneration or dividend based on how you account for it.

Writing assets off? Only if I have an accident and I have insurance for that!

So, what do you do about the new annual investment allowance?

Probably very similar to any accountant. Since any capital expenditure is well within the 50k limit (or pro rata) I do very nicely. What would you have in mind yourself? What do you think I would do differently?

If I bought some office equipment for £10,000 and assuming it was worth claiming I would claim the £10,000 for tax and for the accounts I would charge depreciation at 25% leaving a net book value of £7,500. You said you would write the asset off totally in the first year to agree with the tax calculation. You then contradicted yourself by saying "Writing assets off? Only if I have an accident and I have insurance for that!" You appear to be totally confused.