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Gillespie Tax Management … the way forward

A new name, a new status; Gillespie Tax Management Ltd hits the ground running on 1 December 2015 with over 3,000 clients, and growing daily.

We believe the change from Gillespie Accountancy (LLP) to Gillespie Tax Management (Ltd)
Is coming at the right time … ie when we are at our strongest.

Despite our current success and continuing rapid growth, we recognise the need for change at this time. Thus … the emphasis of our new Company is TAX and specifically the management of our clients Tax affairs.

In reality …
The emphasis on Tax Management is more of an announcement by us rather than a change in direction. Tax Management is not a new concept at Gillespies, we already take control of our clients Tax affairs … much to the disadvantage of HMRC.

As regards timing … our announcement comes within a week of HMRC’s announced 2,000 job cuts in various offices throughout Scotland between April 2016 and April 2020.

Gillespies fear the worst for Scottish Taxpayers, and fail to see how HMRC’s (official) customer services rating of abysmal, will improve over these forthcoming years in the face of huge cuts to their workforce numbers.

Furthermore, we are mystified as to how this Government hopes to deliver a Digital Tax Account system to the nation over the next 3 years with a disillusioned and migrating workforce.

As a Taxpayer you should be afraid, and taxpaying pensioners – very afraid.

HMRC’s plans to kill-off the Self-Assessment system from 2016/17 and replace with Digital Tax Accounts (phased in from 2016/17 to 2019/20) will not only prove a difficult transition for the 10 million taxpayers currently under Self-Assessment, but also the 40 million working taxpayers and pensioners under PAYE!

We fear the worst for the Scottish taxpayer and pensioner, and believe that … even if HMRC’s planning goes well (which of course it won’t), and their switch from Self-Assessment to “Digitally Controlled Accounts” goes smoothly (which also won’t happen) … Digital Tax Accounts most certainly will not be to everyone’s liking!

Millions of taxpayers already feel aggrieved that HMRC fail to answer 50% of their calls.

Their moods are not likely to improve in future years when the main mode of communication is likely to be email, to an anonymous person in HMRC (UK), who is simply viewing a computer screen full of data and information digitally acquired and constantly replenished from multi-varied sources hosting information about taxpaying individuals.

In short, ‘Big Brother’ is coming.

It is the intention of Gillespie Tax Management to develop our own Digital Tax Accounts to hold only correct and relevant data of our clients in order to protect them from the over-zealous, and soon to be over-powered Taxman.

Gillespie Tax Management will be a safe-house for our clients Tax data providing reliable corrective information to HMRC in a digital format, thus preventing them using wrong or out-of-date data.

In short Gillespie’s will offer a parallel service to HMRC’s Digital Tax Accounts, where the management of the accounts and the interest of the individual client is controlled by us.

More details on ‘Digital Tax Accounts’ and ‘Your Tax … Sorted (Now) … a new service for PAYE taxpayers and pensioners, will be released over the next 3 months.

For now Gillespie Tax Management starts as Gillespie Accountancy finished; completing our clients’ accounts and beating Tax deadlines.

George McKenzie
George actually started the business in its original guise back in 1987, endeavouring to combine business experience gained from working in HM Inspector of Taxes, and latterly in the Financial Services Industry. He put this varied and versatile background to good use to revolutionise the way Accountants … not only work, but are perceived by the public.