Already a Contractor?

If you are an experienced Contractor in the UK, then you will probably already be familiar with the variety of different ways of reporting your income from the work that you do.

There are offshore schemes, Umbrella Companies, Managed Serviced Companies – all sorts of ways of working in the UK. Other than slightly obscure or downright illegal ways of operating, there is often a fundamental choice between working as an employee under PAYE, or alternatively becoming a Contractor with your own business.

Many accountants offer services to their contracting clients, but Wellers Contractors uses its pedigree to offer just that bit more than most – all to make life easier for their clients as well as to ensure the highest amounts of after tax income possible under current legislation.

How we are Different? 

• Every Contractor gets their own personal accountant
• The Flat Rate Scheme for VAT makes money for our clients
• We do dividend distribution planning
• We do capital distribution planning
• We only charge Fixed Fees

Every Contractor gets their own Personal Accountant

Unlike most companies, Wellers Contractors does not have some amorphous mass of staff just trying to charge fees from as many people as possible.

We do actually care about building long-term relationships with our clients and always provide a one-to-one service. 

When you become a client, you will be allocated an accountant, provided with their direct telephone line (DDI) and they will be there to answer all of your accounting/financial questions. If they cannot, they will find someone who can – we now have 100 accountants to choose from. 

The Flat Rate Scheme for VAT makes money for our clients

Every business has the option of registering for VAT in order to claim the VAT back on expenses incurred.

Wellers Contractors, however, goes the extra mile, and registers all clients that are allowed (some professions are disallowed) under the Flat Rate VAT scheme. Full details provided at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/start/schemes/flat-rate.htm

It costs us extra time to do, but we do it because it is the right thing to do for our contractor clients, who all benefit financially.

Basically, all professions are allocated a rate of VAT which HM Revenue & Customs consider to be the average amount that is due in that industry. Accountants are allocated a rate of, say, 14.5%, with a 1% discount in the first year, i.e. 13.5%. 

In practise, what this means is that our clients charge their normal rate per week, say £1,000 per week, and then add 20% VAT in the normal way – a total of £1,200 in that week. The 14.5% comes from the gross figure such that only £174 needs to be paid over to HM Revenue & Customs.

This represents a 2.6% increase in pay for all clients falling into this category, some may benefit more, some slightly less - but is recommended to all small businesses by the HM Revenue & Customs and Wellers Contractors alike.

We do dividend distribution planning

Unlike other accounting firms that basically only do weekly invoicing we provide a more advanced form of tax planning to help assist our clients get the most from their business.

Now that the higher rate threshold from 6 April 2011 is set at £42,475, before higher rates of personal tax become applicable, structuring one’s dividend distributions intelligently can significantly reduce your tax – more than £100,000 can be earned in 12 months with less than 20% paid in tax. This is only available to Wellers Contractors clients.

We do capital distribution planning

Unlike your standard accounting firms, we also have an eye for tax planning opportunities that may present themselves in the last year of the business, particularly for individuals returning to the workforce to become employees, or individuals who are leaving the UK.

By combining all of our years of experience in personal tax, we combine our knowledge of residency/domicile tax law with company law to allow for, in certain circumstances, very tax-efficient means of ending one’s contractor status.

Again, very few accounting firms are equipped to be able to do this. Any client of ours doesn’t have to do anything – our qualified and experienced staff are trained to spot these opportunities in our regular client meetings.

We only charge Fixed Fees

Some accounting firms charge a percentage of what a business/contractor invoices. This is an artificial way of charging accounting clients that does not reflect the amount of work involved and penalises those who earn more, and penalises everyone as their income rises.

We have held our fees at £99 per Month +VAT for the last 3 years for the basic accounting package. See information about VAT above. There are additional fees for additional items such as tax planning packages, mortgage reference letters and so on, but these are clearly stipulated in advance and you only pay for what you need.

Wellers Contractors Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wellers Accountants who are regulated by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and a legally binding Letter of Engagement is provided for all clients for their protection as well as detailed Terms & Conditions.

 If any of this is guide is not clear in any way please do not hesitate to contact us. The office here is open from 9am until 7pm so please feel free to call anytime.  Alternatively we can arrange a time to give you a call or make an appointment to meet and discuss your requirements.

Telephone 020 7901 1190 or contact us online

 Download the Guide for existing Contractors in PDF format here »