What do you get for your money?

When you buy a product you can feel it, see it and use it. Your customers can do the same with whatever you sell to them. But if you supply services (like accountants do) it's not so easy.

Some accountants make a point of printing out your tax return in colour and/or binding it nicely so that the copy you keep 'looks good'. They may do the same with your accounts.

Together with the letters you get from your accountant the tax return (and accounts if you need them) may be the only physical evidence there is of the work your accountant has done.

But of course you're not really paying your accountant to present you with a full colour copy of your tax return or a nicely bound set of your accounts are you? Some accountants don't bother to do this. They think the extra cost of colour printing and the extra time it takes to bind the tax return and accounts isn't worthwhile. Some clients will appreciate it, some not. Does it make a difference? Probably not of itself but if it's all part of a package of service aimed at showing the client that their needs are paramount, I think it can help.

If your accountant doesn't provide you with a copy of your tax return to keep - you should ask for one and you should keep it so that you have a copy of what's been sent in to the taxman on your behalf.

What it isn't worth anyone doing is sending a colour copy of the return to the taxman. Firstly they are more interested in returns filed over the internet - which will become the norm within the next 2 or 3 years. Secondly it's a waste of colour ink to send a colour copy of a return to the taxman. All they do is copy type the entries onto their computer and then throw away the physical return that has been sent in.

Your accountant probably sends you two copies of your tax return, one to keep and one to sign for them to send on to the the Revenue. Do make sure you keep the better presented of the two returns. It's for you. Many years ago I had a client who kept the unbound copy. She signed and sent back the one intended for her to keep. She thought it might be better for her if the taxman received a nicely bound copy. It didn't make a difference then and it doesn't make a difference now.