Part time farming and tax returns

Curious Geroge

Hi, I'm new too farming over the past yr and have been advised on doing my tax returns for last year. I've been advised that all farmers are using an accountant for doing there tax returns. Can you tell me if this is correct and if so, is there any approx price on what is paid.. Note, its only a 50 arce farm that's got min stocking..

Sam Kade

Yes that is true. The cost will be at least €1000.

Mr. Pseudonym

I was in a very similar situation last year and went to my local IFAC office and got them to do up a set of accounts so I could do a tax return. After giving them a list of income & expenditure, and rough estimates to values of stock held etc., they did up a full set of accounts for €363.

Curious Geroge

Mr. Pseudonym wrote: »

I was in a very similar situation last year and went to my local IFAC office and got them to do up a set of accounts so I could do a tax return. After giving them a list of income & expenditure, and rough estimates to values of stock held etc., they did up a full set of accounts for €363.

Thanks for this. Its sounds reasonable and I know these guys are giving discounts to IFA members.. As for the €1000, that sounds ludricious, hope to god your not paying it, you'd be giving a fare percentage of your total wage.. seems like there's no interest here.. would i be correct in assumin that the rest of the farming community are doing there own returns ?

Mr. Pseudonym

Yeah, I reckon most part-time farmers do their accounts on a self-assessed basis. As it was my first year submitting accounts I just wanted to make sure everything was hunky dory, but will be doing my own accounts from now on.

As for the €1k fee its probably not too bad for say a large dairy farmer who would be probably using the services of a book-keeper etc.

Sam Kade

Mr. Pseudonym wrote: »

I was in a very similar situation last year and went to my local IFAC office and got them to do up a set of accounts so I could do a tax return. After giving them a list of income & expenditure, and rough estimates to values of stock held etc., they did up a full set of accounts for €363.

You might get that rate your first year with them as they give a discount but the rate will go up every other year. I am not a big dairy farmer and I paid them well over €1000 last year.

Curious Geroge

Sam Kade wrote: »

You might get that rate your first year with them as they give a discount but the rate will go up every other year. I am not a big dairy farmer and I paid them well over €1000 last year.

But what sort of income and expenses are we talking about here. In my own case this could easily be 15% of my profit for a good yr.. Is there a difference between doing them youself and an accountant, will he help me in saving more in area's i'm not aware off (other than depreciation and money out)..

Mr. Pseudonym

Sam Kade wrote: »

You might get that rate your first year with them as they give a discount but the rate will go up every other year. I am not a big dairy farmer and I paid them well over €1000 last year.

Thanks for the heads up.. good job I am going down the self-assessment route!

snowman707

Sam Kade wrote: »

You might get that rate your first year with them as they give a discount but the rate will go up every other year. I am not a big dairy farmer and I paid them well over €1000 last year.

Tell them to stuff it, I was with Ifac up to about 5 years ago, moved to an indy, €650 last year, & that included a lot of non revenue work.

Sam Kade

snowman707 wrote: »

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Tell them to stuff it, I was with Ifac up to about 5 years ago, moved to an indy, €650 last year, & that included a lot of non revenue work.

I was thinking of doing just that as I have been questioning them about their fees with the last two years. I was milking cows up to a few years ago and only had 5 cattle last year and they still charged the same fee.

lanod2407

For a part-time farmer I'd think that self-assessment is the way to go - what can there be that's complex? I've done my own self-assessment for the past six years and use ROS to make the returns - very straight-forward once you've got a simple process to control your inputs and outputs.

I got advice the first year and then just copy the previous year's format each year ......... the only thing I need to do is ensure that I'm aware of what's new / changing each year.

Curious Geroge

Thanks for all the info guys. I'm defo thinking that I'll attempt these myself but worried that I'll end up paying tax where the accountant may have saved me.. but then again, could he safe me more than his fee which leaves me worse off if he cant. I have time to think about it anyways but when is the usual filing date ?

Mr. Pseudonym

Curious Geroge wrote: »

I have time to think about it anyways but when is the usual filing date ?

You will have to file your 2008 accounts by 31st Oct 2009 (or mid-Nov if using the ROS facility).

However, if I was you I would submit them as early as possible, because if there are any problems they can be ironed out prior to the end of Oct, and the way our civil servants are working at the moment it could be a slow process!

johnno900

Hi Guys,
You're all a bit ahead of me. I'm just back from travelling and for that reason, have been putting off starting farming until I got back. I would love to start farming, but do not have direct access to land at the moment apart from an uncle's ex-set-aside land that he does not use anymore which I do not know how to approach him about. I have some really cheap machinery that I have done up and would love to make hay with it and also 2nd cut silage to sell. Would you have any opinions on doing this, taking into consideration that I am just starting out with part time farming, leasing/renting all the land??? If starting out, I would definitely look at IFAC for the first year. Local accountant lives beside me and does all the neighbours accounts. (Don't trust the confidentiality after he has a few whiskies with the locals!) Did my 180 hours 3 years ago.

Curious Geroge

Found this thread on the same topic.

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?p=475079

Also an online course for training.

www.kilroyscollege.ie

tophat

Not fully related to topic but may help.
I use Gnu Cash, http://www.gnucash.org/, which is open source and free to use, for preparing the farm accounts and delivering reports to the accountant.

With a bit of tidying up, I could probably get it to do a P&L, however it is great for keeping track my bank accounts so all I'm doing is a reconciliation when I get the bank statements.

Agree with above posters of approx. €700-1000 for the accountants fee, even when accounts delivered electronically and not a sheaf of invoices/receipts in a shoe box !!.

Red Paddy

Howdy - just inherited a farm myself about 60 acres and will be starting trying to make a living off it next year and am spending this year getting some shape to it and have let it until next November. I am not really sure what game to get into to be honest so just wondering what way you approached it. Its pretty run down at the moment. Just lost my job with a multinational so if I dont make this work will have to emigrate. Thinking about getting a tractor and some very basic machinery as the land needs to be pluoghed and resown as the quality is pretty poor but that seems daunting to me also. Also wondering what type of tractor to get , Jesus they are expensive and the ones within range (10k) are wrecks. have been told to go and see IFA or Teagasc who may be able to give me a steer in the right direction.

ki

A good accountant makes you money.
Mine saved me 2K last year.

Do the day to day(money in money out) youself but use an accountant to give you advice and make sure you are utilising the system.

I have a 50 acre part-time farm and I go to give mine the details twice a year.
In June I give my receipts up to that point, also at this point i have nearly everthing on the farm that I am going to sell before the endof the tax year. we do a small forecast of income for the remainder of the year.

In January we do final accounts.

I am in the 42% tax bracket, so even small profits are made even smaller.

Also remeber that an accountants fee is a cost of the farm.

kfk

ki wrote: »

I have a 50 acre part-time farm and I go to give mine the details twice a year.
.

Blimey, yesterday you had 40 acres!!! Thats pretty good farming.:D I do agree though that a good accountant can save a lot of money for the farmer.

ki

kfk wrote: »

Blimey, yesterday you had 40 acres!!! Thats pretty good farming.:D I do agree though that a good accountant can save a lot of money for the farmer.

44.3 to be exact, I always round it off, sorry.

Anyway are you a stalker or what???

sobs

No, I am not a stalker. I just have a good memory I guess:)