Should I charge?

JodieR

Back in April I took on a client who'd not completed tax returns since 2001/02 as she'd been out of the country and unaware that she was meant to be completing them. I filed returns for 2005/06 to 2011/12 and spent a lot of time making phone calls and writing letters to HMRC asking for them to remove the fines for the earlier years as there was no tax due and she wasn't aware she should have filed returns. HMRC refused to cancel the earlier fines as those years are now closed, so i explained this to the client, billed her for the work done and she paid.
She has since gone to our local HMRC office in person and somehow persuaded them to re-issue the earlier years returns and given them to me to complete. There's not much info to go on them, just the residency pages really but is it cheeky to bill her to complete them?

Monsoon

No it's not cheeky; yes you should charge.

JodieR

Just gave her the invoice & her husband said 'but i thought we'd already paid you for all this' so i explained that it was additional to what I'd invoiced for before and he sort of rolled his eyes and said 'i suppose you can't work for nothing'. awkward but pleased I did it!

esimps

You did the right thing and I completely support you in this. I always charge for additional work like this, it might only be a small fee if the work doesn't take much time but a client can't expect work to be completed for free!

Fingersan

I certainly would have charged something, maybe not alot but definately something. Besides, can you imagine other professionals working without charging. such as solicitors?!...