Business in Practice - As a medium sized company, how can I reduce my tax bill?
Date of Issue: 1st November 2007
Business
in Practice
A regular column of general business advice brought to you
by
Bates Weston, business advisors and chartered accountants.
Graham Buckell MA(Cantab) FCA CTA
Vanessa Johnson CTA are members of Bates
Westons Tax Advisory Team. |
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The obvious answer is to consult a specialist tax advisor, but
how can you be sure of the quality of the advice?
While you cannot beat a personal recommendation you can look at
professional qualifications. In addition to accountancy and legal
qualifications there are also specialist tax qualifications available,
e.g. chartered tax advisors (CTA) and often specialists have qualifications
in more than one field. Experience is also a useful guide and
you may be able to find out more by looking at a firm’s
website.
With your tax advisor in place, the best methods of reducing your
tax bill
will depend on your company’s individual circumstances.
However, there
are a number of areas where savings are often possible and at
least some of these will be applicable to most companies.
- Tax relief for capital expenditure has always been a favourite
area. The rates of relief have often changed and so timing,
particularly around year-ends, is critical especially with
the changes planned for 2008.
- Does the company incur research and development expenditure?
If so it may qualify for enhanced relief but only if a claim
is made.
- The manner of providing benefits to employees can affect
tax bills. Two typical examples are cars and pensions.
- Remuneration planning is often a hot topic. This may take
the form
of use of dividends for owner/managers. Another example is
the provision
of share benefits to senior employees –it is very easy
to make costly
mistakes without proper advice.
- here a business is operated via a number of companies, it
is
important to consider the most tax efficient structure.
Proper advice is also important when selling or buying a company.
Different structures often carry different advantages and disadvantages
and these need to be considered carefully before final decisions
are made.
Your tax advisor should be able to guide you through these issues.
If you would like to come and talk to our tax advisory
team, Graham Buckell or Vanessa Johnson, contact us on 01332 365855
or by email to grahamb@batesweston.co.uk or to vanessaj@batesweston.co.uk.
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