Sole Traders.
Sole trader tax looks simple until the first bill arrives with payments on account attached. We keep your records straight through the year, tell you what to put aside, and file a return that claims everything you're entitled to.
What we take off your plate
- Self Assessment prepared and filed from your real records
- A clear "put this much aside" figure through the year
- Expenses and capital allowances claimed properly
- Making Tax Digital — we get you ready before it's compulsory for you
The year self-employment changed shape.
April 2026 redrew the sole trader's year: Making Tax Digital for Income Tax now applies above £50,000 of qualifying income — digital records and quarterly updates to HMRC (7 August, 7 November, 7 February, 7 May) instead of one heroic January. For the organised it's a non-event; for the shoebox-and-spreadsheet tradition it's a cliff. We set clients up on software that fits how they actually work, run the quarters, and turn the change into what it should be: seeing your tax building in-year instead of meeting it as a January ambush.
The ambush itself has a mechanism worth understanding: your first substantial year triggers payments on account — the year's bill plus half of next year's, at once. It's the single most common cash crisis we see in new sole-trader clients, and it's entirely preventable with a monthly reserve and a warning delivered in October rather than a shock in January.
And we watch the incorporation line for you. The sole trader vs limited company answer moved when Corporation Tax rose and dividend rates followed — run the numbers — but the real trigger is usually not tax: it's risk, a big contract that wants a company, or profits you don't need to draw. When your numbers cross that line, we'll tell you before you ask.
The details we mind so you don't have to
- MTD ITSA quarters filed on time — and software that suits a trade, not an office
- Payments on account forecast in autumn, not discovered in January
- Every allowable expense actually claimed — home working, mileage, tools, the lot
- The incorporation threshold watched yearly as your profits and risks change
Relevant services
Accounts & Bookkeeping
Year-end accounts, management figures and tidy books — done properly, filed on time.
Learn more →Personal & Business Tax
Self Assessment, Corporation Tax, and planning that happens before the year end — not after.
Learn more →VAT
Registration, quarterly returns and Making Tax Digital — without the quarterly panic.
Learn more →Payroll & Pensions
Payslips out on time, RTI filed, pensions handled — every pay run, without fail.
Learn more →Tax Advisory & Planning
The complex questions — remuneration, disposals, reliefs, second opinions — answered before you act.
Learn more →Business Restructuring
Incorporations, share reorganisations, group structures and orderly closures — moved carefully, taxed correctly.
Learn more →