Making Tax Digital for Vets
Veterinary businesses can be individually unique and here at Folkes Worton we will be with you each step of the way whether you operate as a locum or more complex business.
The veterinary sector has seen a lot of change over the last 20 years and compliance with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self-Assessment (MTD ITSA) is where we can help, so you can spend more time on running your practice.
At Folkes Worton you will work with a specialist accountant that will help guide you through the compliance process along with providing with up-to-date advice on best practice accounting and where you can make tax deductions.
It’s important that the right advice is given in respect of tax deductions to avoid problems down the road, examples are:
- Professional fees or subscriptions paid to an organisation approved by HMRC. This is usually the most significant category for vets and freelance employees in the sector and HMRC holds a list of organisations it has approved as deductible for tax.
- Certain travel expenses.
- Donations made to charity via your payroll.
- Any payment by an employee to an occupational pension scheme or private stakeholder scheme.
When it comes to MTD ITSA, it important that vets and medical staff are partnered up with the right software apps, having the facility to link income and take photos of expenditure when on the move and links to the software should result in time savings and more accurate accounting records. The physical records can then be discarded. In addition, with the right solution you should be able to get your chosen software to generate invoices and link to your bank accounts. This should definitely result in administrative time savings and provide much clearer financial information.
The licencing and support cost can be an issue and will need to be considered for some vets and consultants. A one-year subscription for existing bookkeeping software is often more than £200, and an MTD system will require a subscription year on year.
Why do you need the specialists at Folkes Worton:
Software companies won’t generally be able to give you accounting advice and, even if they did, they might not know about the intricacies of accounting and veterinary taxation which have a number of industry-specific rules.