Accountants for contractors offer bookkeeping and accountancy services for people who are self-employed as contractors or freelancers. The services that they provide are relatively specialised, in part, because of the rules and regulations that apply to contractors and freelancers in the UK.
In the UK contractors and freelancers are a growing segment of the workforce. Employers are looking for ways to be more flexible and to ensure that they are never paying staff for doing nothing yet always have staff available to meet the demands of new business opportunities. As a result, they are offering less and less permanent contracts leading to more people in the UK having to become self-employed.
What Accountants for Contractors Can Do For Their Clients
Accountants for contractors have their work cut out for them. Not only do they have to provide regular bookkeeping and accountancy services. They also have to provide their clients with specialist advice. A few years ago, the UK government introduced new regulations called IR 35 to regulate the amount of tax freelancers paid.
The IR 35 rules are quite complicated to understand and are very easy to fall foul of. If you regularly work for a firm it can appear to the taxman that rather than being self-employed and working on a temporary basis you are actually a regular employee. As a regular employee the firm that employs you needs to pay National Insurance contributions for you and a higher rate of tax. In addition, you have to pay the standard rate tax and cannot claim for expenses to reduce your tax bill.
Accountants for contractors often have to advise their clients on how to draw up contracts with the firms that they work for. The advice they give is designed to ensure that the contract demonstrates that the freelancer or contractor is not a regular employee of the firms they work for. In addition, accountants for contractors have also become experts at filling in tax returns in a way that favours the freelancer without breaking the law. If you are a freelancer using a specialist accountant can save you money and stop you from being prosecuted by the taxman.
Beever and Struthers are expert accountants for contractors. They have been providing this specialist service for many decades now, so really know what they are doing.