Tag: Cyprus

Why Hiring a Tax Professional is Your Best Business Option

Whether you are self employed, run your own business or do not get taxes paid through your employer for another reason, hiring a tax professional can be a great decision and can save a good amount of stress and headaches at the end of the tax year. Here are some of the top reasons to hire a tax professional next time your tax return is due, so that your taxes don’t have to be taxing.

1. It’s their profession
Because most accountants will have spent years filling in tax forms, returns documents and producing the required evidence, they will be well abreast of current rules and regulations to make sure you are 100% above board and still getting the most for your money. Because they know the current legislation and rules, they may be able to save you a great deal of money through deductions and offsetting tax against expenses, which many small business owners are unaware of.

2. It saves you time and effort
Even if you are great at keeping your books in order and know exactly what you are doing with your tax return, by getting someone else to do it for you, you can free up your time to do what you do best – run your own business. If you are self employed or run your own small business the tax return can be extremely complicated, and it is estimated most people in this situation spend between 10 and 20 hours sorting everything out. If you view this in terms of the money you could earn if you were working rather than doing your tax return, it can make the accountants fees seem much better value for money.

3. Avoid costly mistakes
If you haven’t done a tax return before, it is highly likely you will make some mistakes when filling in your tax return. These can turn out to be very costly if you have underestimated your tax liability for the year, so use a professional to ensure you get it right first time. The added bonus of using a professional is that they will be around to answer any questions or queries that the tax office has with your submission, so that you can be left to carry on with business as usual.

4. Help with audits and other financial planning
If you are asked to be audited you can be sure it will not be a pleasant process. You will need to have a professional accountant to help you, and by already engaging with one for your tax return you will have built up a relationship with them and they will be aware of your business and better placed to help you. Accountants are also good at financial projecting, so if you are considering taking on a member of staff, expanding your office space or otherwise making a change that will impact the turnover of the business, you can enlist their help to project whether this will be a good business decision or not.

This article has been written from a Professional Cyprus Tax Firm PHS Hadjizacharias and Co. The Company is located in Cyprus and is offering Taxation, Audit, Accounting, Company formation and other corporate services for International Companies

Small Money Mistakes With Large Financial Consequences

All of us are liable to make mistakes every now and then; after all, we’re only human. But there are some seemingly small mistakes that can snowball into something big and bring irreparable consequences to businesses.

If you have typos in a book report, or forget to pay a bill on time, it is easy to be forgiven for these minor errors. However, when you are part of a large company, a simple mistake can turn into a million dollar lawsuit that can render your business helpless or bring it to the brink of bankruptcy.

Listed below are some of examples of little mistakes that resulted in some of the most terrifying losses for businesses.

Website Blunder

In 2006, Alitalia made one wrong move on their website that cost the company millions of dollars. By leaving out a couple of zero’s in the cost of their Toronto to Cyprus fare, the company had to shoulder 2,000 tickets at only $39, when in fact the tickets were worth $3,900. A $3,900 plane ticket for $39!  Surely you won’t find a bigger discount out there.

In light of this huge slip-up, Alitalia tried their best to cancel all the tickets purchased at the incorrect price.  Eventually, though, they had to honor the $39 price tag to appease their disgruntled customers and protect their company name. Now, you do the math.  For 2,000 tickets, Alitalia had to cover roughly $7.72 million from their own funds.

Wrong Move on the Stock Market

One stock broker in Japan will probably never forget the fateful day in 2006 when he encoded the wrong digits on his stock market ledger. Instead of selling each share of J-Com stock for ¥610,000, he ended up selling 610,000 shares for a measly ¥1 with a few doomed key strokes. Despite attempts to correct the oversight, the error was not corrected in time and cost the company a whopping $240 million.

Wrong Punctuation

Surely all of us misplaces a comma from time to time, but no businessman would want to forget this grave error in comma placement.  In a contract with Aliant Inc, Rogers Communications made a tiny error in one clause that resulted in an 18-month long court battle which required them to pay an additional $2.13 million to Aliant. The culprit? A simple comma that should not have been present in the first place!

A Grave Oversight that Clouded Sunny Hawaii

Back in 2009, Hawaii was experiencing a daunting budget deficit made infinitely worse because of a small clerical error.  As the 2009 fiscal year was about to come to a close, one government department posted an $8 million growth, when in actuality the department was facing a $34 million budget deficit. Before they even realized what had happened, the Hawaiian government spent the money, digging themselves further into debt.

Looking at these examples might give you pause and serve as a reminder to be extra careful from now on and avoid following in their footsteps.

If you love to budget and the idea of a misplaced decimal point haunts your dreams, you may be a natural born accountant. Take a look at your options for accounting degrees online, such as these accounting associate’s programs.

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