I feel proud and fortunate to have business with such a great team, that continues to grow despite the truly difficult times we have experienced this year. But like any other business owner, I know how important it is to have a solid plan for the future.  

One of the ways I do this, is by completing a tax diagnostic review on myself and the business. A tax diagnostic review is an enhanced tax consultancy service that identifies all the tax advice areas relevant for you and your business. It considers where you are now, and where you want to be in the future, leaving you with that solid plan.

The Growth Tax Diagnostic Review

Here’s my experience of completing the Growth Tax Diagnostic Review for myself and Inglis Chartered Accountants. This is one of 6 levels of enhanced tax consultancy service

The review specifically focused on the different ways for me to extract value from the business, as well as maximising any future investment. The review identified lots of areas to consider, but I’ve selected 3 areas important to me right now. These are:

• Employee benefits: Not so trivial
• Pension Planning: Suits you
• Commercial Property Planning

Employee benefits: not so trivial

All business owners will agree, recruiting and retaining good people is one of the most important parts of running a business, and it’s also one of the hardest.

That's why I it’s important to me I ensure I maximise all the employee benefits available for my team. The last 6 months have been incredibly hard for everyone, and my team have worked really very hard under such difficult circumstances. This bumps this right to the top of my priorities.

In particular I’m going to look at trivial benefits for my team (which aren’t so trivial in my opinion) as a £50 gift voucher, is a great way to treat and boost your team’s spirits

Pension Planning: suits you

Planning for retirement has always been a high priority for me but over the next lifecycle of my busines, I know I want to invest more, to build a secure future for myself and my family.

So the way I’ve approached this is by first of all mapping out the lifestyle I know I want for the future. I know I’m not one of those people who desperately want to retire early. In fact, I know I’ll be working long into the future. Therefore, for me it’s more about arriving at a number that will provide for the lifestyle I want when I do eventually come to retire.

I actually already have this figure worked (I am an accountant after all) which means I feel 100% confident and have complete clarity over what we need to achieve as a business to facilitate that future.

Commercial Property Planning

This one is a bit more tax technical. The trading company Inglis Chartered Accountants owns a commercial property. This is the property from which we operate, and trade from. I’d like to investigate - in a more detail than I have already - the more tax efficient way to extract the property from the business.

To the future…

As I’ve touched on already, I have a great core team around me. As I look to the future, I have plans to focus on some new higher value services for our clients. To do this I want to make sure I retain that great core team around me.

I’ll be looking at trivial benefits, as I expressed earlier but I want to something deeper that will incentivise the team to help drive the foundation areas of the business in the same way I do. This is through Company Share Option Plans.

We’re not there just yet but I am going to take the next action and obtain an advisory report on what would work best for us. I want to know exactly how it will work, so I can move quickly when the time is right.

Schemes like this are great, as those key employees can benefit tax efficiently from the company's growth. But at the same time, the company is protected from risk if the company of we don’t perform as expected.

It’s win, win.

Get a solid plan with a Tax Diagnostic Review

With a Tax Diagnostic Review, you’ll know all the tax advice areas relevant for you and your business – leaving you with a solid plan of prioritised actions ready to take forward.

Book a Tax Diagnostic Review today.