"What can I do about a €10,000 bill from my accountant?"

brenbrady

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There was an article/letter was in the indo on Tuesday where a client was charged €10k for a revenue audit but when you actually read the letter, the revenue audit rumbled on for two years and there was no liability. Sounds like a good result to me.

Out of curiosity, and this question is for other accountants, do you find that clients think that revenue audit work is included in the annual fee?

PS I couldn't post the link as I don't have enough posts.
 
Generally not, unless some kind of bespoke deal has been agreed whereby all of the client's affairs are covered by an annual retainer.
 
I think that the clients assume that when the accounts are being prepared things are checked and don't understand that everything has to be checked again by a higher level person and there is a cost associated with that.
 
The response in the Indo seems odd to me. The slant I take on the question not a gripe with the accountants and their fee but a gripe with revenue imposing a large cost on them for, as it turned out, no good reason.

It does seem unfair that someone who is tax compliant can have costs imposed on them by virtue of the revenue deciding they will audit them. Not that I know what a fair solution would be. Should the revenue have to stump up some/all of the cost if the target of the audit is found to be compliant (lets assume the two year delay was not the fault of the auditee)?
 
. it's got me thinking if they are going to start auditing people for non compliance of the property charge there are going to be a lot of people in trouble.

If you've proper accounts and have honestly paid the property charge you have nothing to fear. If you're audited in such a scenario, for most PAYE workers you would not need an accountant.

To the OP's specific question, I'm not an accountant, my accountant prepares my returns for a set fee, if there is an audit I will ask my accountant how much it will cost for him to work on it.

That letter in the Indo gave no indication as to the amount of work invovled. But I would have thought an audit over 2 years could well entail costs of 10K. That's not the accountants fault or revenue's fault. If you hire an accountant than you have to pay them. You also have the option of not hiring an accountant.
 
It's a pointless discussion without knowing the context. €10k could be very high or it could be very low. The fact that no additional tax arose isn't relevant at all.
 
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