The “copy, tee, meel” email has to be one of my all time favourites and if you haven’t seen it, then Googling ‘tanjooberrymutts‘ will help you translate those three words into ‘coffee, tea, milk’.  Unfortunately, translating the laws around business food and drink isn’t quite as simple and, to put it bluntly, very little is actually fully deductible (as you’ll see below): (more…)

If you’re keen to save some tax by claiming your Home Office expenses, then we’re not going to kid you – there’s a fair bit of mickey-mousing involved:

1. Start by digging out your measuring tape and working out the floor area of your home office.
2. Then measure the floor area of the entire home (being extremely careful not to accidentally strangle your kids or pets in the process). (more…)

We always chuckle at that joke about “never letting a lack of knowledge get in the way of having a strong opinion” because, as Chartered Accountants, it’s often amusing to quietly sit back and listen to a loud mouth handing out accounting and tax advice. (more…)

It’s not the word “special” and all it’s eighties school yard connotations that make us a little shy of Special Tax Codes.  It’s more about the terrifying surprise tax bills they seem to have the uncanny ability to generate.

Of course there’ll be no ugly tax bills if you possess the skill (or a Chrystal ball) to accurately predict what you’ll earn next year and if that’s the case then now’s the time to talk to your Accountant about applying for your special tax code.

To the unknowing, Special tax codes can seem a bit mystical but all they’re really about is (more…)

Does using Xero mean Accountants can get fat and lazy because they’ve got less to do?  Heck no.  Long before the creation of Xero, smart Accountants used other clever systems to feed your transactions directly into their accounting software so little has changed there.

Another wildly incorrect rumour is believing everything’s in Xero and all that Accountants do is print some snazzy reports!   (more…)