Personal Tax & Self Assessment in Cheltenham
Gro Profit First Accountants prepare and file personal tax returns from our office at 122 Bath Road, Cheltenham (GL53 7JX) for sole traders, limited-company directors, landlords and higher-rate earners across Cheltenham, Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Stroud, Cirencester and remotely across the UK. Straightforward returns start from £199+VAT, more complex returns (rental portfolios, capital gains, foreign income) are quoted individually. Every return is prepared under the supervision of our founder Stephen Edwards FCCA — and every return is checked by a qualified accountant before it goes to HMRC.
Stephen Edwards FCCA — your tax adviser
Personal tax at Gro is led by our founder Stephen Edwards, a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA) with 25 years' experience and the UK's first Profit First Accountant of the Year (2022). Stephen has prepared and filed thousands of self-assessment returns for Cheltenham and Gloucestershire taxpayers — landlords with portfolios from one buy-to-let to twenty, contractors taking salary-and-dividend, higher-rate earners juggling pension contributions and child-benefit clawback, and directors trying to extract profit from their company tax-efficiently. When you become a personal tax client of Gro, Stephen is the person reviewing your return and the person you call if HMRC ever opens an enquiry.
Why Cheltenham taxpayers choose us
We've been part of the Cheltenham business community for 25 years (originally as Cheltenham Tax Accountants, now Gro Profit First Accountants). For self-assessment that matters because, first, you can drive to our office on Bath Road, drop your records on the desk and have a face-to-face conversation about your tax position — not just upload everything to a faceless portal and hope for the best. Second, because we also handle limited-company accounts, payroll and management accounts under the same roof, your personal return is built using the same numbers as your salary and dividends from the company. No reconciliation problems, no missed entries, no nasty surprise on the SA302.
Who needs to file a self-assessment
HMRC requires you to file a personal tax return if you're self-employed with gross income over £1,000 a year, you're a director of a limited company, you receive rental income from property, you earn over £100,000 in employment income, you have untaxed savings or investment income above the allowances, you've made capital gains above the annual exempt amount, you receive child benefit and you (or your partner) earn over £60,000, or you have foreign income to declare. If you're not sure whether you need to file, call us on 01242 528412 — we'll tell you in two minutes for free.
Tax planning, not just tax filing
Filing a return is the minimum your accountant should do. The actual value is in the planning that happens before the return is filed: optimising your salary-versus-dividend split, timing pension contributions to claim higher-rate relief, using the marriage allowance and married-couple's allowance, claiming Rent-a-Room relief or Property Income Allowance for landlords, structuring capital gains across two tax years, and dozens of other strategies that legitimately reduce what you owe. Our standalone Tax MOT typically saves clients £3,000–£50,000 in the first year alone — and many of the savings flow straight through into your personal return.
Deadlines and what we need from you
The HMRC deadline for online self-assessment returns is 31 January following the end of the tax year (5 April). To make sure your return is filed without any last-minute scramble we ask for your records by mid-November at the latest — earlier is better, because the sooner we have your numbers the more time we have to do tax planning before the year-end. We send you a clear checklist of what we need (P60, P11D, dividend vouchers, rental statements, pension contribution certificates, gift aid donations, investment statements, etc), and we chase you politely until we have it all.
Talk to Stephen
Call us on 01242 528412 (Mon–Fri 9am–5pm) or book a free 30-minute strategic meeting. Bring last year's return, a rough idea of this year's numbers, and any tax questions on your mind — we'll quote you a fixed fee on the spot.