But surely it is the accountant's job to tell the client how being a director works.
Most self-employed people have no reason to know the first thing about limited companies and the responsibilities of directors. They are sold the idea by accountants on the basis that it will save them three grand a year in tax.
Now a director rather than a sole trader, these people simply carry on as always; company and personal expenditure gets jumbled together and cash is withdrawn from the company account for personal use etc etc.
A good accountant will untangle the mess, restate things properly and advise his client on how to operate in future. A lousy accountant will simply tell them that they have an overdrawn DLA.
Spongebob,
Just to update you and others like Alan who has kindly been in touch.
The defecit on the my wife's DLA is less than we first thought as the original accountant has come back with new information on how it came about. We had an ex-employee who we had to let go after funding his £25K salary ourselves over the two years, we simply could not keep them on.
They were a friend, or so we thought.... another story.
They threatened us with unfair dismissal, even tho they could see we paid the wages out of our own pocket, cards etc, hence the £30K.
The accountant had put them down as shareholder to give them the same DL/Tax benefits, again, we were stupid and naive, but I suppose we deserve the situation now.
I had to borrow £6K from my parents to stop employee taking us to Court, we paid them this as settlement, their solicitor said we could stand to lose £25K!
The payment of £22K for employee was then declared and shares transferred back to my wife. So her DLA is around £10K and not £35K as we thought.
Phew....
I am now looking to close the company with your plan as we have zero assets. Two creditors are to get the letter that we are in liquidation. Would the consensus be to apply for strike off at CH now, rather than wait.
Thanks
Dave
