Incorrect advice from accountant - WWYD?

[Snog]

Looking for opinions here on what to do next.

I paid for a specialist accountant to calculate my tax on a capital gain.
They advised me of the tax due and asked my to approve the amount so they could upload it to HMRC website.

No calculation was supplied to me just the total tax I owed.

I queried it as it was more than I was expecting and the accountant said sorry she had forgotten to update one of the figures and the correct amount was £1,700 less than she originally said.

I nearly said ok to the original figure as I figured she was a professional and knew what she was doing. I have now asked to see the detailed calculation and it looks right to me.

Given that I nearly paid £1700 in tax that wasn't due to to her mistake would I be reasonable in asking for a discount on the fee (which they made me pay upfront)?

You’ll get the tax back if you have overpaid though. Not saying this is great or anything but it sounds like a mistake which has now been corrected and no harm done?

This

I don't think so, the person did the work. What harm has this done you?

In this case I wouldn't get the tax back if my accountant had uploaded her figures as she proposed to. So she almost cost me £1700.
I spent 24 hours panicking about owing all this extra tax and now think what did I pay £600 to an accountant for exactly?
It seems unprofessional to me.

Nothing bad has happened. Don't use them again or recommend their services. Move on, crisis averted.

Someone nearly ran over my child last week.

@carefullycourageous the point is that the person did the work WRONG!!!

I agree with you op

She nearly cost you a great deal of money, and it was only caught because you queried it

I don't know what you should get back, but I would dispute paying the whole bill

Then check your contract and raise a dispute if you want.

You asked for opinions, you have been given them.

You have to live life your own way.

I would dispute it and try to get a reduction in fee, they are likely to refuse.

I paid an accountant to do my accounts and they forgot to submit my business and personal tax forms. I was fined twice and they also overpaid in tax when they did finally submit as the guy had calculated it wrong. Flag this to the company that I paid £150 a month to look after my accounts and nothing.

did report them however to the financial ombudsman

I would make it clear that I was unhappy with the error they made. You're paying a professional to get things right and they didn't this time. I would expect a reduction in fee in recognition of the time I've spent dealing with their mistake.

I'm an Accountant so I'll give my side.

Mistakes happen. We are not allowed to post anything without your approval - if we do and it's wrong, you accept all liability. It is how it works and you'll probably see something to this effect in your engagement letter.

You checking it meant that the correct advice was given - the end.

You can ask for a reduction as a goodwill gesture but that's it. There is nothing you could report to the financial ombudsman.

You may not like it, but they did it correctly in the eyes of HMRC. Move on.
Use a new accountant.

Thanks for all the advice so far.
@appleandonion there was nothing for me to check as the calculation wasn't supplied for approval, just the total tax due figure. It seems unreasonable to expect me to know it was wrong without seeing how it was calculated.

I only challenged it because it seemed high compared to my idea of what was due from googling around before I decided I didn't know what I was doing enough to do the calculation myself. Turns out I knew more than my accountant. I really nearly just said ok and let her upload it to HMRC.

Have I understood correctly - your accountant sent you an amount of tax they had calculated on a capital gain but without the full calculation of the gain itself. They asked you permission to upload to HMRC site.
The amount of tax looked high, so you googled it and though there might be a mistake and so emailed the accountant. The accountant admits to having made a mistake and then tells you a revised amount of tax (I do hope they supplied the capital gains calculation this time.)
You are not out of pocket currently but had you not queried the tax amount, you would have overpaid tax. As a result you want a reduction in the fees?

A couple of points. Had you paid the tax the error was discovered later, you could have resubmitted your tax return and the overpayment of tax would be repaid to you by HMRC (assuming this was done within the error/mistake window which is a matter of years).
Accountants do make mistakes - they have most likely carried out the service as per your contract and therefore you are due to pay the agreed fee.
However, the service was arguably poor. I would have expected them to send you a calculation to check (not that many people do check these things) but then the error would have been obvious. I am assuming it was a straightforward mistake as opposed to a contentious area of law or area of interpretation. Therefore I would contact them expressing your concern over the poor service and ask for a fee reduction.

Grannybloomers your understanding is correct. If I had agreed the final amount which I almost did then I would never have discovered that it was in error.

I have now requested a fee discount - in response my accountant claims that although she hadn't realised the error when she gave me the final amount to approve that she would definitely have realised her error after this and before uploading to HMRC. She says that she is sorry for her error but no incorrect figures have been filed so no refund.

I have escalated to the national office in case they see things differently.
If not then I guess all I can do is to post a factual review online and advise friends and family not to use this firm.

Why is it ok for an accountant to make a mistake? Surely it's not acceptable?

Yes, we are all human, but that's why we have people to check our work and checks and balances, and if you are paying for a professional service, it is not unreasonable to expect a professional service.

If op hadn't queried, she wouldn't have been likely to know it was wrong later either

What was the mistake they made OP?

We need to charge more at my place, we charge £400 plus VAT for a CGT return.

youve not suffered any loss OP, so there is nothing to compensate OP and even if the mistake had actually been made (i.e. incorrect calls filed) the limit would be the loss you suffered, I.e. any excess tax paid they couldn’t recover.

Believe it or not accountants are people too. No harm was done so you are not entitled to any compensation, and the work was done so you aren’t entitled to a refund. By all means don’t recommend her to others, but I think you’re being petty.

It's draft figure. The final would have been checked again. Mistakes happen all the time at this stage. That's why it's discussed with you. Nothing bad happened, the service was provided. In fact the very worst would have been overpayment of tax. It's not worth a discount.

I'd agree the service was not good (because no calculation was supplied to check, not because of a mistake) but you get a lot of services that aren't good and you still have to pay. I had a patio installed and the mortar failed within the year but we couldn't get any money back, my cleaner doesn't get the house as clean as I'd like, my sons music teacher still hasn't put him in for grade 1 and he's been practicing one piece since November for a school assembly, I can talk to these people about my dissatisfaction and ask them to improve, but I can't get money back, life doesn't work like that. I can choose to find a different builder, cleaner or teacher, but they have been paid for the service performed.

The service was to tell me how much tax to pay.
They did.
It was wrong by £1700.
I had no way of knowing it was wrong and fortunately decided to query it anyway. If I hadn't the figure would have been submitted to HMRC and I would have been none the wiser. Ever.

It was an unusual and uncommon type of transaction with unusual circumstances- CGT on most circumstances is easy and straightforward to calculate and relatively easy to see if it's right (although with no calculation supplied to check that wouldn't help). For this transaction it was way too complex for me to work out the tax myself. It was a part disposal of a gifted freehold in the form of a lease extension. Good luck with that one. Several accountants said they couldn't do it as outside their experience.

My accountant claims that if I had ok'd the figure they would still have re-checked it prior to submission even though it had already been checked by them and agreed by me. In this check say that they would definitely have spotted a mistake they had already overlooked.

I'm quite surprised by how many people would shrug this off as "no harm done and you got what you paid for"!

If you were on an operating table and woke up from the anaesthesia randomly in time to stop the surgeon amputating the wrong leg would you have the same attitude?!

I agree with this. She caused an inconvenience, not a loss. Forget about it, there's nothing to be gained in getting wound up about bad things that could have happened but never did.

She's not wrong about the rechecking it's called the review process.

Sounds like typical small firm. The advice was very cheap, you got what you paid for.

You have absolutely zero ground to pursue anything.

Professional competence isn’t measured in terms of NEVER making a single error. This was a human error that would not have resulted in permanent financial loss to you even if it had not been picked up.

Plus her response was very professional. Immediately accepted her mistake and remedied

@ZenNudist it was a national firm and the advice was £600 so not cheap.

@falloutcheer it would have resulted in £1700 permanent loss

You are right OP, because CGT is self assessed HMRC would know if the calculation was wrong, but not if the figures behind that calculation is wrong. So you would have risked an overpayment that which could only be corrected by revising the calculation i.e. your accountant would have had to catch it later. Unfortunately every firm will have engagement terms that state you are ultimately responsible.