Every now and then I hear about general practice firms of accountants that want to boost their abilities to help...
Tax related Articles
Why I gave up giving tax advice
This is a very different blog post to usual. I hope it will be of interest to accountants and tax advisers generally...
Do you judge your marketing by reference to quantity or quality?
Which result would you rather your marketing efforts generate? A or B? A = 50 calls and emails from possible new clients who ask loads of questions but who have no intention of paying you the sort of fees you charge; and probably don't want you to do much more than...
Ten common tax mistakes that business owners make
Recently I was asked to prepare a quick list of ten common tax mistakes that business owners should avoid. The length of the article in question didn't allow me to expand very much on the mistakes I listed. This is probably the closest I have come to writing about...
Tax support for accountants
Every now and then someone who has known me for a long time tells me about their tax problems and asks my advice. I have to remind then that I haven't been a tax adviser for well over 12 years now. I had already stopped giving tax advice before I created the Tax...
When I’m wrong, I admit it
This post is a post-script to a couple of posts I originally wrote for the TaxBuzz blog. As I no longer update that blog I have to comment here. And, yes, I HAVE to comment. Two people with whom I worked some years ago have been found guilty and imprisoned for...
Why weren’t all accountants promoting those tax schemes?
I imagine that some accountants are concerned that clients may have complaints in the light of the latest media stories about tax avoidance schemes. Such complaints will rarely be justified and would only arise due to some of the misleading reports of the way that...
Is a ‘me too’ Budget summary worth sending to anyone?
Last year I awarded a (notional) prize for what I considered to be the best Budget night 'commentary' that I saw the following day. The winner, and runner-up to a lesser extent, stood out among the dozens of 'me too' pieces that were, frankly, not worth anyone's...
And the award for best budget night commentary goes to…..
I've long been critical of the 'me too' type of overnight budget commentaries. Indeed, these days 'overnight' is slow and many commentaries appear online within hours. I have seen dozens of such identikit commentaries since the Chancellor sat down yesterday. Almost...
Keen to recruit your first tax partner? 8 key questions
One of the most common questions I'm asked, often by recruiters, is if I know a prospective new tax partner for a smaller or mid-size practice. Sadly I can rarely help directly - especially if, as is usually the case, the firm would like their new recruit to have a...
Selling tax schemes is NOT a route to riches
I recently blogged about the 5 things accountants can do to make more profits. Selling tax schemes was not on the list. Why not? Quite simply because the idea is vastly over rated, over hyped and mis-understood. (Typically by non-tax specialists). There are plenty...
What sort of advice do you give? Specialist, Compliance or Dangerous? (part two)
In yesterday's blog I described what I see as the three categories of advice that best describe the approach of many professional advisers. The third category I described was 'dangerous' and I explained that advisers giving dangerous advice, normally do so as they...
What sort of advice do you give? Specialist, Compliance or Dangerous? (part one)
What would be the impact on your practice if a client alleged that you had been negligent? It's not something that anyone wants to consider, of course.Often such allegations lead to complaints that result in investigations and disciplinary proceedings, or a...