How are you proactive in saving people money in terms of tax?

Well soon after I’ve met them, I would realise they have a family, a wife, children….. we can sometimes incorporate them into the business. So for example if the wife is not working at all, its very likely that, from the home she’s fielding his phone calls, issuing his invoices, chasing up the bank statements, making sure that invoices are paid…. We can say that the housekeeping money that he’s giving her is actually for the duties she’s performing, and thereby saving the tax.

What would you say to people who think that meeting an accountant 3 or 4 times a year is an excessive amount of time spent?

Yes, I take your point. Many of my clients are VAT registered, and these have to be filed quarterly, so instead of them merely sending me the information, and me preparing the information for filing, if we meet we can actually analyse the trends of the business each quarter, in addition to that I’m actually doing a quarter of the year’s work.

If you’re helping your clients avoid tax, is that not perhaps a dangerous thing to do?

There’s a fine distinction between tax evasion and tax avoidance. Tax evasion is where you deliberately under-declare your income or claim things which are clearly not allowable. With tax avoidance I would advise a strategy whereby we would minimise the tax but we would fully explain to the Inland Revenue what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. That way neither the client nor myself are exposed to any danger. Quite frankly I can’t afford to be suspended by the Institute, and therefore I would make sure we do these things correctly.