Detailed Services

How can we help you?

Tax Investigations

Our experience has been acquired from both within HMRC and the accounting profession, which greatly assists how we can help you.

We also understand just how stressful a Tax Investigation can be and as a result we aim to lift that burden from your shoulders. We will always try to be available for you to discuss matters with us or to text/email/message us whether it is late during the evening or at weekends.

We can also assist individuals and businesses that are not under investigation by HMRC, but have a past or current tax problem they need to disclose to HMRC.

Estate & Inheritance Tax Planning

The actual amount of inheritance tax your estate will have to pay depends on many factors such as:-

•Your domicile – the country HMRC deems to be your home for inheritance tax purposes (which is not necessarily the same as your domicile for income tax purposes)

•Your marital history

•The location of your assets in the UK and around the world

•What your estate is comprised of

Planning your estate efficiently

By structuring your estate tax-efficiently, your estates tax bill could be reduced so the people that matter to you receive a larger share of your estate. This can be achieved by:-

•The exemption for your spouse – inheritance tax is not normally payable between people who are married or in a civil partnership

•Your transferred nil rate band – if you have been widowed or lost your civil partner

•Gifts to family during your lifetime – small amounts are exempt and most amounts are exempt after 7 years

•Transfers of property in your life time – ensuring you comply with HMRC’s rules

•Reliefs on business – for eligible businesses, unquoted shares and property

•Trusts for children - so they benefit, not HMRC.

•Lifetime trusts for your beneficiaries – useful for assets that have significantly increased in value since they were purchased

•Life insurance to cover inheritance tax liability – particularly useful if:

◦Your spouse is not domiciled in the UK

◦You are planning to leave the UK and want to cover the UK inheritance tax liability on your worldwide assets in the event of your premature death

◦You want your beneficiaries to keep an asset (e.g. a house) rather than sell it to pay inheritance tax

•Leaving 10% of your estate to charity so that your estate is taxed at 36%, not 40%

•Structuring your worldwide assets for tax efficiency – because

◦If you are domiciled in the UK, you may have to pay inheritance tax on your worldwide assets

◦Non-UK assets may be subject to the equivalent of IHT where they are held

Planning your estate

•Wills – writing your will so you can preserve the value of your estate and determine how it is divided after your death

•Trusts – discussing with your solicitor

Varying wills to reduce IHT

Wills can be changed after a person’s death provided all the affected beneficiaries agree. It is done by a Deed of Variation and is legally binding.

Residence and domicile

The new Statutory Residence Test (SRT) was introduced on 6 April 2013.

The three parts of the new test are the:

•Automatic overseas test

•Automatic UK test

•Sufficient ties test

If an individual meets one of the conditions in the Automatic Overseas Test, they will be treated as non-resident.

If none of the overseas conditions are met but any of the conditions in the Automatic UK Test are met, the individual will be treated as resident.

If none of the conditions in the automatic UK or overseas tests are met, the sufficient ties test will apply.

Split Year Treatment

An individual will normally either be resident or non-resident for a full UK tax year.

The tax year can be split between residence periods in certain circumstances, such as:

•Leaving the UK for full time work abroad

•Leaving the UK to live abroad and ceasing to have a UK home

•Coming to live or work full-time in the UK

PAYE

HMRC are actively pursuing companies, individuals, and organisations in order to examine the tax status of individuals working for them.

If an individual has been treated as a consultant on the basis that they are self-employed, and HMRC decides that they were in fact an employee, you as the employer are liable to pay HMRC the PAYE Tax, Employee’s and Employer’s NIC that you should have deducted, and this can be backdated for years.

When considering whether the relationship between you and the worker is that of engager and self-employed contractor, or of employer and employee, several factors should be considered.

A self-employed individual is likely to do some or all of the following:

•They can substitute someone to do the work or engage others to assist them;

•They risk their own money;

•They carry their own indemnity insurance;

•They arrange for their own training;

•They provide the main items of equipment they need to do their job;

•They agree to do a job for a fixed price irrespective of how long the job may take;

•They decide what work to do, how, and when and where to do the work;

•They regularly work for a number of different people;

•They have to correct unsatisfactory work in their own time and at their expense;

•They are outside the management and reporting structure.

Whilst an employee is likely to: