Tax returns are often undervalued. I once had a prospect tell me my pricing was too high because his mate, a fireman, only charged £150.
Now because I have a modicum of dignity I didn’t reply the way I wanted to here but I told him to call me for tax and his mate if he was on fire.
I firmly believe that if you are paying £250 or less for a tax return you may as well save your money and submit your figures yourself. Why?
Well anyone professional qualified won’t give their time away cheap. The surgeon that replaced your granny’s hip spent many years perfecting their skills and rightly got a proper days pay for doing it. If you were on a desert island and all you had was some that had done a first aid course you’d have no option but to let them have a go at you but out of these two options we know what you would rather.
How does this apply to tax? Well I’m a member of the Chartered Institute of tax. If nothing else my subs are a tenner a week. Doing 60 hours of expensive training a year probably adds almost five figures (a day of training can easily cost upwards of £1,000 once you move away from the basics) and this needs to be covered. Build in any reasonable hourly pay for a professional that has spent years honing their skills and the idea of a £250 tax return starts to crumble quite quickly.
So how do people charge so little? It can only be two things. They either aren’t spending a small fortune keeping up to date and being overseen by a professional body OR they are spending no time at all on your return.
I could easily submit your figures in ten minutes for £100. Does that sound better than me spending a few hours going over everything to make sure it is right but charging maybe £500?
How much work do you think I will be doing in that 10 minutes? £100 for ten minutes is £600 an hour pro-rata! Who sounds expensive now?