Accountant and over paid VAT and tax

mickquinn05

Hi All/

Not sure if anyone here can help, was with an accountant for 3 years Im a sole trader, last year I noticed my vat and income tax bill were fairly high and when I question him on it he just replies my turn over is going up, I then got out the calculator and ran quickly through the bank statements and it did seem as though to much was paid so I decided to move to another accountant and ask them to look over the past 2 years, now they have came back and said yes that about 3500 was over paid in VAT and about the same in income tax, so My question is do I have a right to ask to old accountant for my fees back 2 grand by the way or what way dose it work? I know I paid him for a service which he didnt do correctly but as a sole trader the VAT returns responsibility lies with me, not sure where to go with it, if I go to a solicitor they will just say yeah lets take him on so he can charge fees and consumer agencies are no help as I am classed as a business? Any help appreciated

Itchianus

mickquinn05 wrote: »

Hi All/

Not sure if anyone here can help, was with an accountant for 3 years Im a sole trader, last year I noticed my vat and income tax bill were fairly high and when I question him on it he just replies my turn over is going up, I then got out the calculator and ran quickly through the bank statements and it did seem as though to much was paid so I decided to move to another accountant and ask them to look over the past 2 years, now they have came back and said yes that about 3500 was over paid in VAT and about the same in income tax, so My question is do I have a right to ask to old accountant for my fees back 2 grand by the way or what way dose it work? I know I paid him for a service which he didnt do correctly but as a sole trader the VAT returns responsibility lies with me, not sure where to go with it, if I go to a solicitor they will just say yeah lets take him on so he can charge fees and consumer agencies are no help as I am classed as a business? Any help appreciated

First things first: Has your new accountant amended your VAT/Income tax returns and claimed back your overpaid tax? There's a 4-year time limit for claiming repayments of tax, so that should be your immediate concern.

Getting back any / all of your fees from this guy could be tricky alright. He'll say he did the work and charged you an hourly rate.

Your first concern needs to be getting the tax back - just be aware that amending all of your VAT returns and income tax returns will amost certainly result in a query of some sort from Revenue, so you'd better make sure the new figures are correct and you've no skeletons in your closet.

neverwasser

Inform your old accountant that your new accountant has spotted the errors, give him the option of sorting out the mess himself for free, if he turns you down, get your new accountant to sort out the overpayments, the overpayments will cover any fees he has to do this and you will have money left over. Once you now can clearly prove that there was errors by the previous accountant then you can request a refund for the costs from the new accountant to your old accountant. If he turns you down again then you can contact your solicitor or you can contact his accountancy body who will not look favourably on his actions.

Alan Shore

Go back to your previous accountant and say that your new accountant has reviewed the 12 bi monthly returns and has found that the sales has been overstated / purchases understated by x amount in each period. They will need the breakdown of each return to give this figure. Your previous accountant gave these to you? Could your previous accountant say that you did not give in the purchase invoices.

Are you on an invoice basis or cash receipts basis for VAT? Did your debtors increase over the period? Do you have any purchases from other EU countries?

I don't how someone could say that your tax was overpaid by €3,500 without doing up a set of accounts and comparing them with the actual accounts. Again you can outline the areas where the new accountants feel that there is a difference.

I would be really interested to hear the outcome of your correspondence on the VAT in particular.

mickquinn05

Hi All/ I gave all the paperwork I collected off the old accountant and gave it to the new crowd, so they have both worked off the same figures. I just received my new set of accounts from the new accountant and had to obviously pay them to go through the previous two years so after paying twice for the same thing but 3500 better off, we also submitted the VAT returns and put in the Claim for the refund, hopefully revenue will not audit me as a result but even if they do everything is in order and there for them.