tax return software

Hersham Boy

Hi there, has any self employed person used a revenue approved tax return software program recently. If so what are the pros and cons of submitting a tax return yourself over using an accountant? Pay less tax Ireland are running an ad on Radio advertising such a package.. Any comments would be welcome. Thanks.

Gard1

You can download the ROS offline package for free it will do the calculations and is reasonably straightforward to navigate. As regards using an accountant vs doing yourself, an accountant gives fresh eyes over your books and can advise if you are doing something incorrectly. They can be someone you can run ideas off in confidence and get some advise. Often they may see that you are omitting something relevant or treating some item incorrectly. Given that revenue are ruthless with their penalties at up to 30% of liability it may be cheaper to employ an accountant (I may be a bit bias though as an accountant lol)

Hersham Boy

Thanks for taking the time Gard1.

yop

Agree with Gard1 on that one.
I do all my own VAT returns but the F11 I fill in using ROS Offline and I send that an my records to the accountant to give a view over.

Hersham Boy

Hi Yop thanks for that. I presume then that your accountant charges a reduced fee then for checking the paperwork? (Not asking for figures here) Thanks.

yop

Hersham Boy wrote: »

Hi Yop thanks for that. I presume then that your accountant charges a reduced fee then for checking the paperwork? (Not asking for figures here) Thanks.

They do indeed. 500 + VAT.

Hersham Boy

Pay less tax Ireland are charging €121 + vat for the software plus a further €73 + vat to check your submissions then file them for you. This is why I'm asking about this particular software trying to get a handle on how user friendly it is. Thanks again

patrickwoodcock

Apologies for being of no help, but am in similar situation, new to being self employed and trying to keep costs down and saw the paylesstax website, so would also be really interested if anybody has used a service like it.

Thanks

Hersham Boy

Hi Patrick,
I used this package for the first time last year and it worked out grand so far. Don't know how useful these guys would be should you ever be audited but for submitting your returns it was grand. I paid the extra to have them check it and sure enough I got a call from one of their accountants looking for clarification on a couple of the figures I submitted. They also answered some of my questions over the phone no bother. I had been using an accountant but had to cut my costs as the last two years in particular have been brutal. If you are going to use them maybe ask them about the audit situation and post back?



quote="patrickwoodcock;95441992"]Apologies for being of no help, but am in similar situation, new to being self employed and trying to keep costs down and saw the paylesstax website, so would also be really interested if anybody has used a service like it.

Thanks[/quote]

patrickwoodcock

Thanks for that. If I find out about the audit I'll post here

Hersham Boy

Cheers.

patrickwoodcock wrote: »

Thanks for that. If I find out about the audit I'll post here