Accountant - free advice here!

[MamaDalton27]

I’m a fully qualified accountant working at one of the big 4. Got a bit of a quiet afternoon and I know accountants aren’t cheap so thought I’d see if anyone had any questions or wanted any advice?! Ask away and I’ll do my best to help!

I've been doing prolific academic surveys since April. So far I've earned £3000 ish, so I'll have to do self-assessment tax return next year, I think? Do you know any good guides for self assessment please?

just to say no questions but that’s so nice of you!

Very nice of you. For self-funded CPD trainings is the full cost able to be written off? Not a core training but further trainings.

What are the rules on income from selling electricity from solar panels back to the grid?

I'm almost 40 and thinking of training as an accountant. I have no qualifications as I've always worked in various customer service roles so I'm not sure how to go about this. Any advice?

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Oooh thank you
if I inherit say £50k, should I put it in pension or ISA? I know I get the tax advantages with pension but then pay tax the other end - is the amount of difference worth the lack of flexibility?

Do you mean good guides as in what you can claim as expenses etc?

In what scenario? Are you self employed? Is it related to your work?

I have a question for you.

Should people take the financial advice given to them by random strangers on the internet?

Hi, I meant in terms of how to fill it in please, I've never submitted a tax return before.

Generally exempt as long as it’s from your private home!

So I started at my local council as an apprentice. I did AAT first which does take longer than going straight into one of the more advanced courses but it gave me a good basic understanding. For you though I’d go straight into a professional qualification. The three main ones are CIMA/ACCA/ACA. I’m not sure on the entry requirements but check those first to see if you’ll need something to enrol. They can be quite expensive so I would look for a trainee contract where study support is offered that’s how I did it. Do you know what type of accountant you want to be or what area you’d like to work in?

Depends on your personal circumstances and your age. Obv pension you can’t access but ISA you can. But less tax relief with an ISA. Also depends what tax rate you pay

Haha well that’s a personal decision. I think it would be clear pretty quickly if I had no idea what I was talking about. Was only trying to be helpful!

It's all right, I was pulling your leg.😂

Thank you that's really helpful. I have no idea what area I'd like to work in, I'm going into it blind if I'm honest. Not because I think it's easy but it can be more flexible than what I currently do / my current options and obviously it pays more 😅.

If I earn 90k salary and get a bonus of 40k what is the best way I can manage my tax code? Currently I am on the tax code which gives me the 12500 tax free allowance but I get hit with a large tax bill each year because the bonus takes me beyond this.

ive upped pensions contributions but that only helps to a point and means I don’t feel the benefit of my salary. Should I just go on a Zero tax code? Any advice?

I have a pension with Avva.. I am old enough to "claim" it but honestly dont need the income as yet and I am still paying into it meantime. But I notice I am paying £1000 a year in charges! While I dont want the hassle and dont have the knowledge to invest by myself I feel these charges are very high for what in general terms is quite a small pot. Any advice? Thanks meantime.

Have you registered as self employed? It should be relatively simple to fill in I’m assuming there’s minimal expenses? But if you don’t have experience doing it it can be quite daunting with the language etc and it’s not something I can explain step by step on here. When was the income made?

I wasn’t quite sure haha

I haven't registered as self employed when should I do that? You're right, minimal expenses. The income is from this April through to next March, so I think I fill in the self assessment after next April?

I didn’t really know at the time but I wish I did as I would have gone into a different area but by the time I realised I’d done the wrong qualification.

Practice - working for accountancy practices, more numbery and you’d work with clients prepping stat accounts, tax returns, VAT returns, tax planning etc

Industry - working for one company and more financial analysis and month end. Audits and prepping info for stat accounts but anything like that will then be audited by external accountants. Management accounts and KPIs and business partnering

Forensic - like a money detective can work with criminal cases or insurance etc

for forensic you need ACA, industry is CIMA and practice ACCA. But I have ACCA and have always worked in industry

So it sounds like you’re getting pushed into the 60% trap where you’re effectively paying 60% of your salary as you lose the personal allowance.

Other than pension contributions there’s a few things you can try.

Charitable Donations - if you make them with gift aid the charity claims back 20% on top. Then if you’re a higher rate tax payer you can claim back the other % from HMRC. They give you this back by expanding your basic rate amount

Salary Sacrifice - you can make use of this to reduce your tax liability if your employer has schemes like a car scheme or buying extra leave

ISA - Use the tax free annual allowance in an ISA and you’re exempt from tax on the interest or profit if it’s stocks and shares

How old are you? How much is in your pension pot? Do you know what the charges are for? They’re usually a %? For something like this I’d recommend speaking to a financial advisor, they would be able to go through your options. Private pensions are generally invested anyway via the provider but a financial advisor would be able to tell you if your pension is performing as well as it could be or if you’d better either switching provider, or investing another way (I know you said about knowledge but there are companies who would manage that for you). Maybe taking your tax free lump sum. But this is definitely a financial advisor question