Tax Planning for the Long-Term

At the last count, UK tax legislation exceeded 10 million words. Whether that’s a LOT of pages, or some very small print, I think we can agree that it’s staggering. And applying that legislation to the unique personal circumstances of a business owner as well as to the unique financial circumstances of their business is a highly complex area. 

Even though you have an accountant it’s almost certain that they’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible.

It’s not their fault, you’re not paying them to do more for you.

It’s not your fault, you don’t know to ask them to do more for you.

You maybe even ARE paying for a service labelled Tax Planning and yet every year, when you’re presented with your tax bill, you ask the question ‘is there anything more we can do to reduce that?’ 

Yes, yes there is.

Tax Compliance - this is what you get when you choose the cheapest accountant. Presuming they do a good job they’ll only help you pay the right amount of tax according to your accounts

Tax Planning - if you pay a little more, you may have a pre-year-end meeting that reviews where you are, what the outlook is for the year ahead and some easy-win tactics. You stand a chance of saving some good money - usually a lot more than the modest premium being paid.

Tax Advice - from time to time something will crop up. Maybe you’re looking at an employee share scheme or want to buy a company car or jump on the crypto bandwagon. You need to know the tax implications and so you need a one-off piece of advice from a professional.

So that leads us to the Strategic Tax Plan. 

Why, when you’re having a Tax Planning meeting is it based on a 12-18 months time horizon? 

Is that aligned with your business plan? 

Are you perhaps looking to create value, wealth, jobs over a longer period of time?

Why are you in business? 

What do you want to achieve? 

How much money do you want to make? By when? 

What’s the money for? 

Why’s that important to you? 

How do you see the business helping you achieve these things? 

Only by exploring your long-term aims and aspirations, your specific personal circumstances and linking that back to your business can you hope to receive a comprehensive and strategic tax plan. 

With that comes the confidence that you are not paying more tax than you need to and, wonderfully, the tax saved will accelerate you towards those very goals.

It’s not a service that’s commonly available to small business owners but if you ask for it, you’ll soon discover that it pays for itself many times over.