From Standish to Leigh, we list 83 accountancy firms across Wigan borough with their Google ratings. Choose one yourself, or let us match you with up to 4 who will quote, including for a simple check of whether you need Making Tax Digital at all.
Wigan, Leigh and the townships
Claimed firms first, then by number of Google reviews. Ratings come from each firm’s Google Business Profile (53 of 83 have reviews). Any paid placement is labelled Sponsored.
Example: how your firm could look here
Your office address, Wigan
★★★★★ Your Google rating and reviews
Two lines in your own words: who you help, how you handle the quarterly updates, and what a sole trader or landlord pays.
Zone 3, Waterway House, Canal St, WN6 7NQ
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13 Stone Pit Cl, Lowton, Warrington, WA3 2TD
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The Old Police Station, 82 High St, Golborne, Warrington, WA3 3DA
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Wigan Investment Centre, Waterside Dr, WN3 5BA
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The Old Chapel, Buildmain Business Centre, Laburnum St, Atherton, Manchester, M46 9FP
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Ste 312, ATLAS HOUSE, Caxton Cl, WN3 6XU
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Wigan Investment Centre, Waterside Dr, WN3 5BA
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Not sure who to pick? Let us match you.
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Turnpike House, 25 Market St, Leigh, WN7 1DR
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First Floor, Waterside House, Centre for Trade Technology, Waterside Dr, WN3 5AZ
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Pemberton Business centre, Richmond Hill, WN5 8AA
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34 Devon St, Leigh, WN7 2NG
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Unit 22, Lowton Business Park, Enterprise Way, Lowton, Warrington, WA3 2AP
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Is your firm missing or wrong? Claim or correct your listing.
Before you hire anyone
At the 2021 Census, 17,227 people in the borough were self-employed without employees, and 6,731 of them, about 39%, worked part-time. Plenty of them will sit under the threshold. Five checks, all from GOV.UK:
On your 2025 to 2026 return. If not, you do not start in April 2027. Check again against £20,000 for April 2028.
None of those count. Only turnover from self-employment and rent before expenses is added up.
Partnerships are not in MTD for Income Tax yet, and your share of partnership profit does not count.
For example qualifying income of £20,000 or less, no National Insurance number, or acting for someone who has died.
Age, health, disability, no internet where you live or work, or religious belief. You must apply; HMRC decides case by case.
If you are clearly in, the firms above can help. If you are not sure, ask them for a quote to check; it is often a short, low-cost job.
Tell us your income mix and we find firms that will tell you straight.
Wigan, Leigh, Hindley, Standish, Atherton and beyond.
Compare the cost of a one-off check or a full year of updates.
The service is free and there is no obligation.
Exemptions and opting out
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax has two kinds of exemption. Automatic ones HMRC applies from what it already knows, so you need do nothing. They include qualifying income of £20,000 or less, having no National Insurance number before the tax year starts, trusts, and personal representatives dealing with the affairs of someone who has died. A second, temporary group lasts until at least April 2027, covering, for example, people who claimed averaging relief on their 2024 to 2025 return and foster or kinship carers who claimed qualifying care relief. The full list is on GOV.UK.
The other kind you have to apply for: being digitally excluded. HMRC accepts that some people cannot reasonably keep digital records or send updates, because of age, health or disability, because there is no internet at home or at the business and nowhere suitable nearby, or because their religious beliefs rule out digital records. It looks at each case individually. It will not accept, on their own, that you are unfamiliar with accountancy software, keep few records, or would find signing up time-consuming or costly.
If you apply, do it by phone or in writing to HMRC’s Self Assessment general enquiries; HMRC aims to answer within 28 days. An accountant or a family member can apply for you, but the decision rests on your circumstances, not theirs. Being exempt does not mean no tax return: you carry on with Self Assessment as before.
Self-employed income goes up and down, and part-time work more than most. GOV.UK says you can opt out once your qualifying income has been below the threshold for three tax years in a row. HMRC checks this using your fourth quarterly update of the third year, so you do not have to wait for the final declaration. Once you are eligible, the option appears in your HMRC online account, or in your accountant’s agent account. You still send a tax return for that year, but no more quarterly updates.
That makes it worth keeping an eye on the numbers rather than assuming you are in for good. A Wigan accountant who handles your updates should tell you when you become eligible to opt out; ask at the start whether they will.
Wigan borough is not one place. Around Wigan itself, firms are in the town centre (WN1), along Wigan Lane and at Waterside House, and in Standish (WN6), Orrell and Pemberton (WN5), Hindley and Aspull (WN2) and Ashton-in-Makerfield (WN4). Leigh (WN7) is a post town in its own right, with 15 firms on this page. Further east, Atherton uses M46 and Tyldesley M29, so their firms show Manchester addresses; Golborne and Lowton use WA3, under Warrington. All of them are inside the borough and all of them appear in the list above.
The borough is changing too. The council bought the Galleries shopping centre in 2018 and renamed the site Fettlers in 2025, after the Wigan word for fixing and making things; the area around Wigan Pier and Trencherfield Mill on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal is being redeveloped as the Wigan Pier Quarter. At junction 25 of the M6, Symmetry Park is planned to bring large-scale logistics jobs to the edge of the borough.
Wigan Council’s Invest in Wigan team gives free, independent advice to businesses and to residents who want to start one, with Growth Advisors before and after you start and a weekly Pop-Up Shop in the town centre where a new business can test the market. The council’s annual Believe in Business festival, held at The Edge in September 2025, brings support organisations together in one place. GM Business Growth Hub, which has specialists in each Greater Manchester borough, runs EnterprisingYou for the self-employed. The Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce runs networking events in Wigan too.
Wigan and Leigh questions
Only if your gross self-employment income plus any gross rent was over £30,000 on your 2025 to 2026 return (or over £20,000 on your 2026 to 2027 return, from April 2028). Wages from a job taxed through PAYE do not count, so many part-time sole traders will not need it yet.
Yes. HMRC automatically exempts people whose qualifying income is £20,000 or less, people without a National Insurance number before the tax year starts, trusts, personal representatives of someone who has died, and some others listed on GOV.UK. You do not need to apply for these.
It means it is not reasonable for you to use software to keep records or send updates, for example because of age, health or disability, because there is no internet at your home or business and nowhere suitable nearby, or because of religious beliefs incompatible with digital records. You have to apply to HMRC for this exemption.
Not on that reason alone. GOV.UK lists reasons that will not be accepted by themselves, including being unfamiliar with accountancy software, having few records or the extra time or cost of signing up.
By phone or in writing to HMRC’s Self Assessment general enquiries. If you write, HMRC asks you to use the subject line “Making Tax Digital for Income Tax — digitally excluded application”. It aims to reply within 28 days. An accountant or family member can apply for you, but HMRC judges it on your circumstances.
Yes. Exempt people must keep reporting their income and gains through a Self Assessment tax return as before.
You can opt out once your qualifying income has been below the threshold for three tax years in a row, or if an amended return brings the previous year below it. The option appears in your HMRC online account, or your agent’s, only when you are eligible.
Not yet. GOV.UK says partnerships do not currently have to use it and that a timeline will be announced. Your own share of partnership profit also does not count towards your qualifying income.
Yes. Leigh is part of Wigan borough, and 15 of the firms on this page have Leigh (WN7) addresses. Firms in Atherton and Tyldesley have Manchester postcodes, and those in Golborne and Lowton have Warrington ones, but they are all in the borough.
Wigan Council’s Invest in Wigan team offers free, independent advice for businesses and for residents starting one, including Growth Advisors and a weekly Pop-Up Shop in the town centre to test an idea. GM Business Growth Hub’s EnterprisingYou programme supports the self-employed.
Sometimes. A short paid check of whether you are in or out, and of whether you qualify for an exemption, can save you buying software you do not need. Our form lets you ask several firms what that would cost.