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TaxScouts

review

Is it any good?

Christopher Dowling
Christopher Dowling
Editor-in-Chief
Updated
October 18, 2024

Review contents

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In a nutshell

TaxScouts is a great option for your Self Assessment tax return, or even your company tax return (if you have one). It’s all online, easy to use, and you simply fill in your details (e.g. your income), and a fully qualified accountant will sort the rest for you – potentially saving you some cash by paying less tax (legally of course). All for one fixed low fee. It’s ideal for those who aren’t confident filling out their own tax return. 5 stars from us.

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TaxScouts rated 5 stars
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TaxScouts

cracked open

Tax doesn’t have to be taxing as they say, and with TaxScouts, it’s definitely not taxing – they handle it all for you, and for a fixed fee. Are they better than a traditional accountant? Let’s find out.

TaxScouts is a modern way to handle your Self Assessment tax return, which is letting HMRC (the UK tax people) know how much you’ve earned within the tax year (April 6th to April 5th the following year), and how much tax you’ll need to pay.

TaxScouts review

If you’re self-employed, or have made money from things like investing, or a side hustle (side job), a landlord, expat or construction worker, and more, you’ll likely need to fill out a Self Assessment tax return. You can do it yourself, or get someone else to do it like an accountant or TaxScouts.

TaxScouts can also give tax advice if you don’t need or want the Self Assessment service.

Best of all, you don’t necessarily need to think of it as an expense, TaxScouts will help you reduce the amount of tax you’ll pay (if possible), so technically you could have more money in your pocket!

They also provide accounting services to businesses too, such as year end accounts preparation and corporate tax returns – we’ll cover those later.

TaxScouts is all online, but there’s real accountants doing the work behind the scenes to ensure your tax return is accurate, and has everything HMRC requires.

TaxScouts website

It’s quick too, and can take just 48 hours in some cases.

And, what’s great is it’s a fixed fee, and low cost compared to using a more traditional accountant which can be around £300 (it’s £169 for the Self Assessment service with TaxScouts).

Anyway, enough of the overview, let’s dive into the details.

If you’ve heard enough already, get 12% off with Nuts About Money by visiting the TaxScouts website¹.

How TaxScouts works

TaxScouts has a range of services, all related to tax of course, both for individuals, and for companies. Although their main service is the Self Assessment tax return.

Self Assessment tax return

With the Self Assessment tax return, simply fill out the form on the TaxScouts website¹, to equip your accountant with the information they need to prepare and file your tax return.

TaxScouts self assessment

There’s typically up to 8 sections for most people, some long, and some shorter. For instance, if you’re self-employed, you might need to fill in details about your self-employment section and dividends section (from your limited company (your profit paid to you)).

Here’s the main categories:

  • Employment (if you’re also employed)
  • Self-employed details (e.g. your business name)
  • Any property rental income
  • Any capital gains or losses (e.g. selling a property)
  • Pension and benefits
  • Dividends and interest (e.g. money paid to you from the profits of your business)
  • Foreign income
  • Any other sources of income

Hopefully you’ll find this pretty simple, if not, it's all explained within the form.

After that, you’ll be matched with a fully qualified accountant (hand-vetted by TaxScouts), who will prepare the Self Assessment for you (and get in touch if anything isn't quite right). They’ll send it to you for approval and request any documents you might need to upload to your TaxScouts account (if any, such as information on a property sale).

They’ll also look at how to reduce your tax bill – that’s things like making the most of your business expenses which reduces tax.

Once you’re happy with your Self Assessment, TaxScouts will file it with HMRC (the tax people). You’ll find out whether you owe any taxes, and if so how much the bill amounts to, and you’ll have until midnight on the 31st of January to pay. And that’s it, you’ll get confirmation that it’s all done until next year…

TaxScout's Self Assessment price: £169 (12% off with Nuts About Money, so £149).

Get 12% off

TaxScouts are giving our lovely readers 12% off. No strings attached.

Visit TaxScouts¹Visit TaxScouts¹

Tax advice

Tax advice with TaxScouts is where you can speak to a tax professional directly (a qualified accountant), either by phone or video call.

You can ask them whatever you like, it doesn’t have to be about your Self Assessment (although it can be). For instance, you could ask about tax on your pension, Capital Gains Tax, or even things to do with a limited company, such as how to best pay yourself.

Anyway, you get the idea. We think this is a great service – you get an answer super quickly to any tax issue you might have, rather than having to sign up to a whole accounting service in order to get an answer to one thing (e.g. a traditional accountant).

TaxScout's Tax advice price: £139 (12% off with Nuts About Money, so £123).

Tax bundle

This is the Self Assessment and tax advice packaged together with a lower price of £249.

Company accounts & tax return

If you’re running a small business via a limited company (or partnership), this could be ideal for you (you’ll need a turnover of less than £200,000 to use TaxScouts). This service produces your end of year company accounts, and your tax return – both of which you need to do each year.

Note: you can also use the service if you’re a dormant company (not trading, so no sales or expenses).

It’s pretty simple and straightforward, you’ll fill out your company details on the TaxScouts website¹ (e.g. how much money it made), and then you’ll be matched with the right accountant with the right expertise for your business.

TaxScouts

They’ll review everything, and ask you any questions and request any documents needed (e.g. bank statements). They’ll try and reduce the amount of tax you’ll pay too.

You can chat to your accountant when you want to (if you want to), by sending in a message over the live chat system (on the website) – and you can ask as many questions as you like.

You’ll then get your end of year accounts and tax return, and once you’re happy with it, TaxScouts will submit it to Companies House and HMRC. Job done.

TaxScout's Company accounts & tax return price:

Dormant companies: £99 inc VAT (12% off with Nuts About Money, so £87).
Non-VAT registered companies:
£399 inc VAT (12% off with Nuts About Money, so £351).
VAT registered companies: £499 inc VAT
(12% off with Nuts About Money, so £439).

Note: this doesn’t include any personal tax returns for company directors. You’ll need to add on the Self Assessment service.

Bookkeeping

The bookkeeping service is an online tool where you can keep all the important financial information together in one place (it doesn’t have to be a limited company). 

For instance, you can create, manage and send invoices to customers, upload your receipts for all your business spending, and manage your income and expenses (e.g. how much you are making).

You can do lots of things automatically too, for instance connect your bank account, which will help produce your income and expenses, and your receipts can be scanned to populate your expenses too.

This makes things much easier when the time comes at the end of the year to produce your accounts.

Price: free (you don’t need to buy any other service).

Customer support

The customer support is excellent, they’re a very friendly bunch, and you can message online via live chat, or email. There’s no phone support unfortunately.

TaxScouts customer support

This team is different from your accountant, and you can speak to the customer support team before you sign up to the service for any questions you might have before paying.

Customer support runs from 9am to 6pm on weekdays.

With your accountant, you can chat to them through the messaging feature on the TaxScouts platform whenever you like, or if you opt for the tax advice service, you can speak to them over video call or phone call.

Is TaxScouts safe?

It’s perfectly safe to use TaxScouts – they won’t have access to any of your bank accounts or anything like that (although the bookkeeping tool can read your bank transactions if you allow it).

All the accountants are fully qualified and vetted, with at least 5 years experience, and all based in the UK.

TaxScouts customer reviews

Looking at the popular reviews website Trustpilot, TaxScouts has an insanely good score of 4.8 out of 5, which is classed as excellent, and from thousands of reviews.

TaxScouts customer support

Lots of the reviews mention how easy the system is to use – filling in their details and uploading documents. But more importantly, the accountants are friendly and professional, and quick.

TaxScouts pros and cons

Here’s a quick recap and the pros and cons of TaxScouts:

Pros

  • Low, fixed cost tax returns
  • Easy to use website
  • You might be able to reduce your tax bill
  • Great customer service
  • Fully qualified accountants
  • Quick service overall (a few days)
  • All you need for personal tax
  • All you need for small business accounts and tax
  • One-off tax advice with an expert
  • Free bookkeeping tools

Cons

  • No customer support over the phone
  • Not much else!

Our thoughts

We’re really big fans of TaxScouts – it’s a modern approach to tax returns, which is seen as dated and complicated at best, and has been a long time coming! If you’re not confident filling out your tax return yourself, TaxScouts is a great option.

As it’s all online, it’s super easy to fill in the details, and upload documents, but more importantly, you don’t need to go into your accountants office or sit on the phone or video call for ages – you don’t really need to do a thing after you’ve filled out your details…

TaxScouts application

Everything is handled behind the scenes, you'll just get a few questions here and there if something needs clarification. And, it’s handled by fully qualified accountants, who are on hand to help you and answer any questions you may have.

But more importantly, they could potentially save you a small fortune in tax (depending on your circumstances). That’s by using all the tricks (legally) to reduce your tax bill.

And if you want a bit more in-depth tax advice, you can arrange a call with a tax expert (for a fee).

TaxScouts is a great option for companies and partnerships too – often you need to sign up to expensive accountants (and pay monthly), and if you’re a small business it can be a high expense.

With TaxScouts, it’s a fixed one-off payment each year to sort your end of year accounts and tax return. And, you still benefit from the peace of mind that a qualified accountant is handling it for you.

Overall, it’s a big 5 stars from us, and we think they're worth their weight in gold. Oh, and TaxScouts have got in touch to offer our lovely readers 12% off too (completely free), all you need to do is get started on the TaxScouts website¹.

Get 12% off

TaxScouts are giving our lovely readers 12% off. No strings attached.

Visit TaxScouts¹Visit TaxScouts¹

Get 12% off

TaxScouts are giving our lovely readers 12% off. No strings attached.

Visit TaxScouts¹Visit TaxScouts¹

Get 12% off

TaxScouts are giving our lovely readers 12% off. No strings attached.

Visit TaxScouts¹Visit TaxScouts¹

Written by

Christopher Dowling
Editor-in-Chief

Christopher Dowling combines a communications degree with over 10 years experience in the financial services industry in London – with focus on educating people on a wide range of money topics in an easy to understand way. He writes about savings, investing, pensions, mortgages, insurance, banking, loans, business finance and other money topics.

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Get 12% off

TaxScouts are giving our lovely readers 12% off. No strings attached.

Visit TaxScouts¹Visit TaxScouts¹

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