“I never hear from my accountant”

“I had 2 weeks to pay a £95k tax bill”

“I had no idea I could do things to manage my tax bill”

These are all comments we hear too many times to mention, and all unnecessary.

We only engage with people we can support, and we appreciate every part of your business, we are part of your journey, so it’s so frustrating for us to hear our clients say they have had no tax planning conversations previously.

How can anyone just ‘find’ £95,000? you may have cash in the bank, but that’s not the point, and you may genuinely have a £95,000 tax liability, if all tax planning ideas

have been considered, that’s fantastic, you’ve got a great business.
Unfortunately, this happened to one of our facilities management clients before they
moved their accounts to us… 2 weeks’ notice to pay £95,000 tax bill, very little
conversation about their taxes had taken place, so a surprise like this, also a week
before Christmas, was the final icing on the cake to consider a more proactive
accountant.
Meeting 1 – let’s explore why you had a £95,000 tax bill? What tax planning could
have been considered? What structure do you have in place? Does the business
need anything to help support growth?
Meeting 2 – 1 month before the next Financial Year End – similar previous year
turnover and profit levels, therefore, starting point is £95,000 corporation tax bill.
Let’s plan:
 pension contributions had not been used – let’s roll back
 new van planned for the May – let’s bring that forward to March
 new electric car planned for June – let’s bring that forward to March
 new sweeper needed for a new contract starting in July – lets buy that
sweeper now

Meeting 3 – year end again, very happy client – spent money on their business to
support their growth, using all tax planning tools to proactively reduce corporation tax
to £23,000 – same turnover, same profit before tax planning – £72,000 saved to
spend on their business, using rules available to everyone.

Facilities Management businesses are typically very busy businesses, don’t be too
busy to talk to your accountant and review all tax planning rules available before you
have that surprise tax bill – there’s no need for tax surprises in business.