Sole trader accounts in Sandy Lane, Wrexham

Self-employed people in Sandy Lane, Wrexham trading in their own name: tradespeople, drivers and couriers, hairdressers and beauticians, consultants, creatives, market traders, therapists, tutors and anyone else running a business without a limited company, from a first-year side business to an established trade with a van, equipment and a few thousand transactions a year.

• Income and expenditure account for the tax year or your accounting period, with a balance sheet where you want one
• Every expense category reviewed for what is allowable, including home working, vehicles and the trading allowance
• Capital allowances on equipment and vehicles, with the cash basis or accruals basis chosen to suit you
• A plain-English summary: profit, tax and National Insurance due, payments on account and what to put aside
• Figures prepared in the format the Self Assessment self-employment pages need
• Records organised and stored so that an HMRC check can be answered quickly

1. Scope the job

   We find out what you need filed, when it is due and what state the records are in, and tell you which fixed-fee package applies.

2. Agree the price

   The fee is confirmed in writing. There is no hourly billing and nothing added for questions during the work.

3. Hand over the records

   Photographs, PDFs, software access or a spreadsheet, sent however suits you. We confirm what we have and what is missing within two working days.

4. Approve, then we submit

   You review the draft with our explanation, sign off, and we file. Receipts, copies and the next deadlines come back to you immediately.

Sandy Lane, Wrexham is in Wales, Wales. Businesses in Wales file with the same HMRC and Companies House as England, and for now the Welsh rates of income tax equal the English ones, though the Senedd can vary them. The practical differences are Land Transaction Tax on property and Welsh-specific business support schemes, and company names and documents may be in Welsh.

Director's loan accounts

The most common tax problem in owner-managed companies is an overdrawn director's loan account: drawings taken during the year that were never declared as dividends or salary. The company faces a 35.75% charge on the balance outstanding nine months after the year end, and the director may have a benefit in kind. We review the account before every year end to clear it properly.

Salary versus dividends

Paying yourself from a company involves two routes with different tax treatment. Salary through payroll is a company expense and builds a National Insurance record; dividends come from post-tax profit at lower personal rates. Undocumented drawings that are neither become director's loans, with a 35.75% section 455 charge if not repaid within nine months of the year end.

Allowable expenses

The expenses sole traders most often miss are home working costs, claimed by actual proportion or HMRC's flat rate, the business share of phone and internet, mileage at 45p for the first 10,000 business miles, and training that maintains existing skills. The ones most often claimed wrongly are commuting, entertaining customers and clothes that could be worn outside work.

Corporation Tax rates and marginal relief

Corporation Tax is not a flat rate. Profits to £50,000 pay 19%, profits above £250,000 pay 25%, and the band between is taxed at an effective marginal rate of 26.5% through the marginal relief mechanism. Associated companies share the thresholds, which catches directors who own more than one company and is the most common cause of underpaid tax in owner-managed groups.

Record keeping

Record keeping is a legal obligation with a penalty of up to £3,000 for failure, but its real value is in making every other filing cheaper and more defensible. Keep invoices, receipts, bank statements, mileage logs and any HMRC correspondence, digitally if you like, for five years after the relevant filing deadline for individuals and six years for companies and VAT.

The VAT registration threshold

VAT registration is compulsory once taxable turnover in any rolling twelve-month period exceeds £90,000, or when you expect to exceed that in the next thirty days alone. The test is rolling, not by tax year, and includes zero-rated sales. Businesses regularly cross it without noticing, and late registration means accounting for VAT on sales where it was never charged to customers.

The 60-day property CGT return

The 60-day Capital Gains Tax return on residential property is the deadline landlords most often miss, because it falls outside the Self Assessment cycle and runs from completion, not exchange. Private residence relief for periods you lived in the property, plus the final nine months, reduces the gain. Penalties for a late return mirror Self Assessment, starting at £100.