Tax Consultant's bill too high - what to do?

C

clipper

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I'm trying to help my father with his finances at the moment as he is terminally ill and hence this situation is all the more upsetting. He had a small business working as a tradesman and used a tax consultant to do his bookkeeping and file end of year accounts as he was set up as a limited company. He stopped working May 07 and a few months later he was diagnosed with cancer. I went to his tax consultant in sep 07, explained the situation and asked him to start procedures to close the company. He said there was no hurry to close the company, that it'd be better to keep it open untill all debts were in and would cost nothing extra to keep it open another while. By April this year all debts were paid, we're talking about 4k as dad hadn't worked all year. Once all received I again asked tax Cslt. to close co. so he prepared 2007 and 2008 set of accouts for the company to file and forwarded a bill to my father for his work. He charged 1900 for 2007 work and 1900 for 2008 work. My gripe is that if he'd told me late last year that it would cost an extra 2k to keep the co. open into this year, I wouln't have done it. In fairness the 2008 a/cs woul've taken 20 mins to prepare. Is he entitled to get paid? dad trusted this guy so there were never any quotes for work to be done etc. If I ignore the bill as I don't think he should get all this money, can he still claim it off dad's estate?
 
Sorry for your problems

To be honest these fee levels do not appear expensive, pretty much run-of-the-mill in fact.

By the way, I've yet to see a company where annual accounts, abridged accounts, CRO annual return, Corporation Tax return and an accounts file could all have been completed in 20 minutes.

Also, it would have been impossible for you or the consultant to (legally) close down the company in Sept 2007 until and unless all debts were cleared. The CRO do not entertain requests to voluntarily dissolve companies until the directors are able to certify that there are no assets or liabilities remaining.
 
Going rates for Tax Consultants are anything from €150- €600 per hour, depending on who you use!
 
€1,900 would not be a large bill from a tax consultants office. I do understand your frustration though, especially if the only difference between the two accounts was the clearance of the debts.
 
Thanks for your replies, am greatful for objective opinions and it looks like the bill is not off the wall after all.
 
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