Farm Accounts and Tax Returns
Written and reviewed by the Agricultural Accountants editorial team. Last reviewed 27 July 2026.
This is the core annual job: turning the farm's records into accounts, working out the tax with the farming reliefs applied, and filing the return. Done well it is quiet and predictable, and the January figure is never a surprise.
Done by a generalist it is where the herd basis gets missed and a volatile year gets taxed harder than it needed to be.
What the Accounts Work Covers
The farm accounts on the accruals basis so averaging is available, the Self Assessment or corporation tax return, capital allowances on machinery and new buildings including the Annual Investment Allowance, and the VAT return where you are registered. Where a production herd is kept, the herd basis; where profits swing, the averaging.
The output is a set of accounts a bank or a landlord can read, and a tax figure worked out with every farming relief you are entitled to.
The January Figure, Given Early
The single most useful thing an accountant does for a farm is tell you the tax before it is due, not in the last week of January. We prepare the return early, give you the balancing payment and the payments on account, and flag whether averaging or timing a machinery purchase would change it.
If the number is difficult in a poor year, a Time to Pay arrangement is arranged before the deadline rather than after it.
Records, Once, Not in a Chain of Emails
We ask for the farm records once, in a single list, rather than in a running chain of requests across three months. Where you keep books in farm software, we work from that. Where Making Tax Digital now applies, the records are kept digitally through the year, which is covered in our Making Tax Digital service.
The aim is that the accounts are a by-product of records you already keep, not a separate scramble each spring.
Fees for Accounts and Returns
A fixed annual fee based on the size of the farm business and what is outstanding, quoted before we start. It includes the accounts, the return, the capital allowances and the payments-on-account calculation.
It does not include chasing you in January, because we ask for records after the year end, not at the deadline.