Tax Planning

Paying the right amount, and not a pound more

Tax planning isn't a product you buy once; it's a discipline of reviewing your position before decisions become fixed. Because we already handle your accounts and returns, we see the opportunities as they arise, and flag them to you rather than waiting to be asked.

Year-end tax planning: the dates that decide your bill

Two year ends matter, and they are rarely the same date: your company's own accounting year end, which fixes the corporation tax picture, and 5 April, which fixes the personal one. Planning means acting on the right side of each.

Before your company year end:

• Pension contributions paid, not just intended. A company contribution only reduces this year's corporation tax if it leaves the bank before the year end.
• Capital spending timed. Equipment bought a week before the year end gets relief a full year earlier than the same purchase a week after.
• The marginal band watched. Profits between £50,000 and £250,000 are taxed at an effective marginal rate around 26.5%, so the timing of income and costs either side of the band boundaries genuinely matters.
• Bonuses and bad debts declared and written off while they still count.

Before 5 April:

• Dividend headroom used. The £500 dividend allowance and any basic-rate band left unused do not carry forward.
• Capital gains timed. The £3,000 annual exempt amount is use-it-or-lose-it, and a disposal straddling two tax years can use both.
• Transfers between spouses made before a disposal, not after, so gains land where the tax is lowest.
• The £100,000 taper managed. Between £100,000 and £125,140 the personal allowance withdrawal produces an effective 60% band; pension contributions and gift aid can pull income back below it.

For business owners

• Salary vs dividends: the optimal remuneration mix, recalculated each year as corporation tax bands, dividend rates, employer NI and the Employment Allowance move
• Pension contributions through the company, often the most efficient extraction route available
• Timing of income and expenditure around year ends and rate bands
• Family employment and shareholdings, done properly and defensibly
• Exit and succession: structuring years ahead so Business Asset Disposal Relief is actually available when you sell or hand over. The 18% rate, the £1 million lifetime limit and the two-year qualifying clock all reward starting early.

For individuals

• Full use of personal, dividend, savings and capital gains allowances, including transfers between spouses
• Capital gains tax planning on property, shares and business assets: disposals timed and the right reliefs claimed at the 18% and 24% rates
• Pension and gift aid relief, especially around the £100,000 personal allowance taper
• Child benefit charge planning for higher earners

Every figure we plan around is published and kept current on our tax rates and key dates pages, so you can see the rules we're working with.

Our approach

We put a proposal in writing with the numbers shown: what you'd pay with no action, what you'd pay after, and what has to happen by when. No schemes, no grey-area products: just the rules, used well, for businesses and individuals across Liverpool and Merseyside. Where a question crosses from tax into regulated investment advice, we say so plainly and point you to someone authorised to give it.