TAX PLANNING

Talk to us now about reviewing your tax affairs. We can assist you with planning and managing your personal and business affairs to minimise tax payments. This includes advice in the following areas:

Personal Taxes

Capital Gains Tax

Corporate Taxes

Inheritance Tax

Remuneration Tax Planning

Tax Investigations and Enquiries

Tax Planning on Incorporation

VAT Planning

Transactional Tax Planning

Personal Taxes

Income Tax

Income tax rates having risen steeply in 2010 the time to plan to minimise Income Tax is now. Have you considered the impact of the proposed 50% rate of tax and the changes to the taxation of pension contributions?

Our services include the preparation and submission of your self-assessment tax return, helping to ensure that you have claimed all the reliefs to which you are entitled and that your tax risk is minimised by including the correct level of disclosure. We can advise you on structuring remuneration packages.

National Insurance

This tax can add substantially to employment costs or personal tax costs for sole traders and partnerships and needs to be managed in tandem with Income Tax.

Tax Credits

As Tax Credits are potentially claimable for families with income up to approximately £58,000 (2010/11), you may be eligible for this benefit. Using our specialist tools we can help to structure your affairs to claim the maximum to which you are entitled.

Trading losses

We can advise you on the use of any trading losses you may have accumulated.

 Capital Gains Tax

This is an area of tax which has changed considerably over the last few years. We can advise you on maximising the reliefs which are available to reduce the tax payable.  In particular, we can advise on :

• Entrepreneurs’ Relief – this a lifetime relief and so needs to be planned carefully

• Principle Private Residence Relief

• Transfers between spouses

• Relief for gifts of business assets

• Use of capital losses

Corporate Taxes

We can help you to plan to minimise Corporation Tax payable, including the following:

• Corporation Tax planning, as well as preparation and submission of Corporation Tax returns

• Reconstructions and Re-organisations

• Group Relief

• Research & Development Tax Credits

• Land Remediation Relief

• Substantial Shareholdings Exemption

• Use of trading losses

• Advice on Associated Companies and the impact on corporate tax and liabilities.

 Inheritance Tax

We can help you to plan your affairs to ensure that your wealth is protected at various times in your life through careful Inheritance Tax planning.  This can cover:

• Lifetime planning

• Planning between spouses

• Maximising use of reliefs, including spouse exemption, use of the nil rate band, gifts, business property relief and agricultural relief

• Valuation of company shares

• Estate & succession planning

• Trusts

• The family home

Remuneration Tax Planning

The way you take your remuneration from a business and / or your employment affects the amount of tax payable as an individual and as an employer. There are many factors to consider. Why not talk to our advisors about:

• Salary v Bonus v Dividends

• Salary sacrifice schemes

• Share Option Plans including Enterprise Management Incentive scheme

• Pension contributions

Tax Investigations and Enquiries

We realise that it can be a very stressful time during an investigation or enquiry by H M Revenue & Customs.  We can assist you through this process  - this is especially important in view of the recently introduced penalty scheme which is likely to lead to higher penalties being charged now than in the past.

We can assist you in this process by assessing the technical merits of the claims and / or assessments being made by H M Revenue & Customs and then, where appropriate, assist in the replies given, challenging technical aspects of the assesment and managing the process.  We can handle the correspondence with H M Revenue & Customs, allowing you to concentrate running your business or performing your job. We can attend meetings and where necessary take the case to the appropriate tribunal.

Tax Planning on Incorporation

If you are considering incorporating an existing business, we can assist with planning a tax effective method for achieving this.

As an owner / shareholder there are a variety of ways to draw cash from your company.

We can help you with this by comparing the tax costs of a variety of methods of extracting cash from your company.  This is likely to include:

• Salary / Remuneration

• Pension contributions

• Dividends

• Potentially rent, loan interest or royalties.

VAT Planning

We can advise you on when to register for VAT and assist you in registering if required.

VAT is a complex area with many traps for the unwary.  We can advise you on VAT strategies to maximise recovery of VAT suffered and to minimise the VAT payable on sales.

Our VAT advice covers the following areas:-

• Flat rate scheme

• Partial exemption

• VAT in relation to property development

• Tour Operators Margin scheme

• International services

• Registration/deregistration

• Reverse charge rules

• Capital goods scheme

• VAT grouping

• Buying or selling a business

Transactional Tax Planning

We bring together our expertise across the taxes to try to ensure that the tax cost is minimised when we are involved in a transaction.

We find that when we are involved at an early stage we can structure the deal to maximise the tax reliefs available and minimise any tax costs.  We find that this really adds value and saves time and expense at a later stage.

On the buy side, we are proactive in advising on tax efficient structures for the purchaser. During the  process of due diligence, we are able to identify where the tax risks lie and utilise this information in the transaction negotiations.

On the sell side, if we are involved early enough we can help assess where the tax risks primarily lie and address those issues before they become a potential deal problem during due diligence.

Go To Our Transaction Services Page

I highly recommend Zenon. I found them both professional and more importantly approachable.

They took time to understand the challenges  I was facing and provide the correct advice in a highly supportive way.