Tax planning that materially changes the after-tax outcome.
The planning levers that matter most for our clients are not the ones that show up in a generic adviser’s article on annual allowances. They are the structural decisions that come up around a business sale, an executive equity package, a portfolio of significant size, or an estate facing meaningful inheritance tax exposure.
These are the decisions where the difference between proactive planning and reactive compliance is often six- or seven-figure across an engagement.
Pre-exit tax planning. Capital gains tax structuring around a business sale, including BADR planning, pension funding ahead of completion, EIS and SEIS reinvestment, and the trust and Family Investment Company structures that work pre-transaction but not post-completion.
Post-exit tax efficiency. Deploying significant proceeds across the right wrappers in the right order. Pension where available, ISAs annually, GIA layered with active CGT and dividend allowance management, onshore and offshore bonds where the maths supports them, BPR-qualifying portfolios for IHT mitigation.
Executive compensation. The tax architecture around LTIPs, RSUs, EMI options, and restricted shares. Where there is choice between income tax and capital gains treatment, we work through the trade-offs explicitly. Where there is none, we plan the surrounding tax wrappers to absorb the proceeds efficiently.
Inheritance tax planning. Lifetime gifting, gifts out of normal expenditure, BPR and APR where they apply, trusts, and the structural choices about pensions, life cover, and investments that determine what an estate looks like at death.
Annual tax efficiency. ISA and pension funding to allowance, capital gains and dividend allowance management, charitable giving via Gift Aid and gifts of shares, and the basic-rate-band, higher-rate-band, and personal-allowance-taper interactions for clients whose income sits in the right zone.
The tax planning we focus on
Why timing matters
Tax planning is not a year-end exercise for our clients. It is a continuous discipline of using allowances before they expire, structuring decisions before they become irrevocable, and engaging with planning issues with enough lead time for the relevant levers still to be available.
The decisions that materially change the after-tax outcome of a business sale are made years before completion, not in the months before. Pension carry forward expires on a rolling basis. EIS reinvestment relief has time limits. Trust structures need lead time to be effective. The honest planning conversation is often: what would have been available if you had engaged eighteen months earlier and what is still available now.
A note on our role
We are financial planners, not tax advisers. We work with clients on the tax planning that sits inside the financial plan and coordinate closely with the client’s accountant or tax counsel on the specifics of each return and each transaction. For complex situations we will introduce specialist tax counsel where one is not already in place.
Tax planning advice is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
FAQs
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The honest answer is: as early as possible. Most of the structural decisions that materially change the after-tax outcome of a sale, share class, BADR ownership periods, pre-sale pension funding, trust and Family Investment Company structures, pre-transaction gifts depend on lead time. Eighteen months before completion is workable, three to five years before is materially better. Engaging once a transaction is in motion limits the planning to the smaller subset of decisions still available.
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Your accountant is the specialist on the technicalities of each return and each specific transaction, and on areas like corporate tax, VAT, and personal tax compliance where their professional indemnity sits. We focus on the planning structure that sits underneath those returns, the wrapper architecture, the timing of allowances, the cross-discipline interaction between pension, investment, IHT, and CGT decisions, and the multi-year tax position of the client overall. The two roles are complementary rather than competing, and most engagements involve us working closely alongside the client’s accountant.
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Yes, where they fit the client’s tax position and risk tolerance. EIS, SEIS, and VCT are useful planning tools for the right client, particularly post-exit founders looking at capital gains deferral or executives with high income who can use the income tax relief efficiently. They are not appropriate for every client, and we will say so directly. The selection of specific managers and funds is done on a whole-of-market basis from the providers we monitor.
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