FINANCE Protecting your assets Jamie Crampton asks is your accountant accountable?

done it by now. If you haven’t – you MAY still be able to make the declaration of intent – the key issue is that anything that becomes due must be paid by the March 31st 2012. If you decided that you had nothing to declare, and are now having second thoughts, then my advice would be to speak now. If not, and if HMRC decide you did having something to declare – but chose not to, you could face much higher penalties than you would have done.

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It may well be that as a result of surveying your finances for the HMRC scheme you discover errors made either by you or your accountant. If the error was made by you there is nothing much you can do about it except to own up and take the consequences. If your accountant made the error – your options will depend on whom your accountant is (or was at the time).

Ideally your accountant will be a qualified member of the Institute of Charted

s most self employed members may know the HMRC “tax catch up” scheme is now in full swing and if you had anything to declare you should, of course, have

Accountants, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants or the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (and a few other bodies). All qualified members of these bodies must be registered with their associations and hold practicing certificates for them to prepare accounts for the general public. It is true that you don’t have to be qualified (or even an accountant) to submit information to HM Revenue & Customs but remember:-

l It is your name on the tax return – your accountant is only your agent l If your accountant/agent isn’t a member of any of the bodies listed they will not be being regulated properly and they won’t be able to get Professional Liability Insurance.

As with the insurance that you have as a fitness professional this is designed to protect clients against mistakes made by a professional person – without it rectifying a mistake can cost thousands of pounds in professional fees, fines and penalty charges. It is therefore vital that anyone you choose to represent you in your taxation affairs has coverage that will protect you if the worst were to happen. Saving yourself a few pounds by doing things yourself,

or picking someone purely on price, can cost you a lot in the long run.

As professionals in the fitness industry you would expect your clients to do their checks on you before they used you – you should do exactly the same.

THE AUTHOR Jamie Crampton qualified as a chartered management accountant in 1995 and in 2008 set up Accounting 4 Fitness, dealing with clients in the fitness industry. In addition to

this up

this he also advises personal training students on setting up in business and works with accounting students at the University of Bedfordshire in Luton.

28 The REPs Journal 2012;23(January):28-29 The REPS The REPS Journal 2009;00(Month):00-00