Posted by Written by: Florian Wierzchowski
Although every entrepreneur should keep an eye on whether his business is profitable or not, there is no legal obligation to do so. Of course, if someone wants to and can afford it, he can run an unprofitable business. On the other hand, one way or another, we have to calculate and pay taxes, as well as send tax returns to the authorities. You probably know the saying that the only things that are certain in life are death and taxes. I’ll add from myself that Social Security contributions, too.
If you’re just contemplating opening a business and intend to succeed, don’t even let the thought cross your mind that you’ll take care of tax and Social Security settlements yourself, and that you don’t need any accountant or accounting firm to do it. Even if it’s the notoriously simplest lump sum, please don’t take the tax risks yourself. You will miscalculate something, fail to file some tax return on time or fill it out incorrectly, and at best you will be correcting these things. The finale will be that you will receive a severe fine or other punishment for a misdemeanor or felony listed in the Penal and Fiscal Code, which you have never even heard of before in your life. Such “pleasures” will spend your sleep and instead of thinking about the development of your business you will only worry and stress. Because that is the opportunity cost of deciding not to pay the cost of having your business handled by an accounting firm. It may never happen, but is it worth the risk?
What does an accounting office give us? An accounting office professionally handles bookkeeping for entrepreneurs and takes responsibility for it. The bureau watches over you, the bureau will advise you, the bureau will warn you. It also wants your safety. In addition, every accounting office is insured against liability. What does this mean? Namely, if even such an accounting office were to make a mistake, you would have to pay a financial penalty, this penalty would be covered by the insurer with which the office is insured. That’s why choosing to have all your accounting handled by an accounting office, you not only know the results of your business, but most importantly you sleep soundly, you don’t dream about taxes, you don’t worry about the tax authorities, and during the day you just focus on your business.
The first two times I ran my business, I decided to do the accounting myself. The income and expense tax book was trivial, Vat accounts to grasp. With the almost free program Small Accountancy of the Republic I was able to manage on my own, although surprises did happen – I recall with nostalgia when at 10 pm on the 25th of the month I remembered that the VAT return had not been sent and I had to print the return immediately, get in a toddler and drive 20 kilometers to a town where the Post Office was open until midnight.
However, man learns from experience and his own mistakes. The main thing is to learn from them. The third opening of the business in 2020 was already in the years of the changed, because the exponential complexity of tax settlements (before that, things got complicated all the time, too, but rather linearly), the emergence of split payment, reverse Vat, stricter penalties in the Criminal Tax Code. There could only be one choice – I will pay the accounting office and want to have holy peace of mind. Holy peace of mind is something worth paying for. I predict that the complexity of tax settlements will further increase, all the more reason to choose an accounting office.
On the other hand, there is one exception to the whole above argument. If you’re the one who runs the accounting office and that’s what your business is all about, then you don’t need to outsource your business to a competitor at all. Probably – after all, the cobbler walks without shoes.