Latest Tax Planning

MBO: Self-funding £1m deal allows owners to retire. We have successfully advised the business owners of an engineering firm on its £1m buy out by the existing management team. Our team were initially approached by the business owners for exit planning advice. The owners had successfully built up an engineering business over 20 years and…

Gift Aid: Claim your own tax relief… When we make gift aid donations to registered charities, the charity is able to reclaim 20% of what we give from HMRC, provided we have paid sufficient tax to frank the gift made.

Taxation of Termination Payments: ‘All change’ HMRC has, for a while now, been trying to find a way around allowing the £30,000 tax free termination payment to employees. This may, in part, be from the knowledge that there have been occasions where some employers have excluded the inclusion of ‘payments in lieu of notice’ (PILON)…

Transferring Second Property into Joint Names: Beware SDLT trap! We commonly advise married clients who are considering a transfer of rental property from one spouse into joint names. Where the owner spouse is a higher rate taxpayer, there is often a potential to make use of the other spouse’s basic rate tax band. The potential income…

HMRC: Roll-over on farm cottages. Are farm cottages owned by a farming company and occupied by farm workers business property for capital gains tax roll-over relief purposes? It was held in the case of Anderton v Lamb that property occupied by partners in a farming partnership were not. In order to qualify for relief, farm…

Budget 2016: New CGT planning opportunities. George Osborne’s latest Budget heralded an unexpected reduction in CGT, lopping 8% off both the 18% and 28% rates. But not for residential property- George continued his attack on residential landlords. However, it may well be that sales of other assets are now best deferred until post 5 April…

Examining whether it is best to run the business as a limited company or otherwise (sole trader, partnership or LLP), If operated as a limited company: Looking at the combined business and personal tax ‘picture’ and optimising the mix of retained profits, salary, bonus and dividends (for the business owner and, where relevant, immediate family…

Super Tax Reliefs: Claim both patent box and R&D relief? The answer to this question is yes and the combination of the two reliefs can be very valuable! We have a number of clients who are undertaking ongoing research and have already registered a patent on their earlier research. They are able to receive the…

New Dividend Tax Rules: Planning opportunities during transition. In his 2015 Summer Budget George Osborne rewrote the rules for calculating the income tax that individuals and trusts pay on their dividend income: Abolished the tax credit, Introduced a £5k tax free dividend allowance, Increased all of the tax rates on dividend income by +7.5%. As these…

Start-ups: Make use of your spouse’s tax allowances. There are a lot of costs surrounding setting up your own business, so saving tax is a big concern for most clients. This can be done in a number of ways, through ensuring you are claiming all your business expenses. However there is also the consideration of…