Services
In a Nutshell
We manage all aspects of our clients’ personal tax affairs so that they can be confident that they are structuring their businesses, investments and family wealth tax-efficiently and that they have complied with all their personal tax obligations to HMRC.
Our Ethos
We want to be there with our clients through the ups and downs giving pragmatic, focused and above all honest tax advice, working with them to put them ahead of the curve in factoring tax-efficiency into their strategy, and ensuring that they maintain a healthy and transparent relationship with HMRC.
Family Office Experience
We are not called Family Office Tax because we only work for clients with established family offices, but because our goal is to provide a “family office experience” to all of our clients similar to an in-house tax team. We achieve this through our unique approach to supporting our clients and by working seamlessly with other advisors and combining our networks to ensure the best advice, service and value.
Our Approach
We take a simple but effective approach focused on proactivity over reactivity:
Information Gathering
We obtain a detailed understanding of our clients’ affairs, normally by reviewing the composition of their personal balance sheets and exploring with them their future plans and intentions with regards to their businesses, investments and family wealth.
Tax Strategy
We apply that knowledge in brainstorming and developing a clear and coherent tax strategy for our clients, which we then break down into individual areas where we have identified any concerns or opportunities for tax-efficiency.
This could be from the perspective of income tax and capital gains tax on profit generation, cash extraction and re-investment or inheritance tax on wealth transfer and succession, but it is always driven by the specific personal and commercial objectives of our clients.
Review and Improve
We continue this process of review and improve on an ongoing and pre-emptive basis, revisiting the tax strategy regularly as a sense check that it is still fit for purpose, or when there is a material change in client circumstances, or when there is an expected or actual change in the tax rules which could have an impact on tax-efficiency.
Implementation
We follow any tax advice we provide through to the end by managing the implementation of any proposed transactions: co-ordinating and being the central point of contact for our clients, their other advisors and their lawyers, taking responsibility for driving and communicating progress, and ensuring that what is often a complex process is as streamlined and cost-effective as possible for our clients.
Compliance
We prepare the personal tax returns for our clients (including reporting and disclosures for any transactions) and deal with any enquiries raised by HMRC. We also collate a comprehensive tax and transaction history which can be accessed on demand by us or our clients.
Examples
Examples of our work include:
Advising on the creation, operation, restructuring and rationalisation of different structures for business and investment assets, whether that be corporate groups, partnerships or trusts, both inside and outside the UK. This might be creating new tax-efficient structures or liquidating old tax-inefficient structures depending on the circumstances.
Advising on the restructuring of businesses in the context of partial or full exits, raising external finance, merging or demerging, cash extraction and succession planning, including advising on the relevant reliefs, anti-avoidance provisions and clearance processes, undertaking a tax review of the transaction documents and handling the reporting and disclosures on the personal tax returns.
Advising on inheritance tax exposure and mitigation, including succession planning options in lifetime and on death, Business Property Relief, Agricultural Property Relief and the Conditional Exemption for Heritage Property, and ensuring wills have been drafted tax-efficiently and without triggering any pitfalls in maximising those reliefs.
Advising on individuals becoming or ceasing to be UK tax resident and associated pre-arrival or pre-departure planning.
Advising on all aspects of the taxation of non-UK domiciled individuals, including the remittance basis of taxation and Business Investment Relief, the taxation of non-UK tax resident trusts and inheritance tax planning specific to non-UK domiciled individuals.
Advising on the anti-avoidance provisions that apply to UK tax resident individuals with structures outside the UK. We find that these are often overlooked, which can result in tax-inefficient structures and non-compliance with obligations to HMRC.