Complimentary Tax Health Check

3 days ago
4 min read

Do You Have a Tax Strategy? Is It Working for You?

Take Advantage of Our Complimentary Tax Health Check

When you’re running a business, you’re often consumed by the day-to-day. Whether it’s managing staff, dealing with customers, or navigating market shifts, your attention is fully absorbed. In this whirlwind, it’s easy to delay thinking about tax planning — until a costly surprise arises.

Many people assume that tax planning is only for high earners or large corporations. In reality, some of the most effective and impactful tax strategies are relevant to small business owners, property investors, consultants, and even individuals approaching retirement.

We regularly meet with clients who are making investment, property, or business decisions without fully realising the potential tax consequences. That’s why we offer our Complimentary Tax Health Check — to help our clients pause, review, and plan smartly.

What Is the Tax Health Check?

Our complimentary service includes:

A discovery call or meeting (up to 45 minutes) with one of our tax teams where we’ll gain a detailed understanding of your business and personal financial position.
A review of your current tax strategy, or identification of where one might be missing altogether.
Analysis of key areas including:
- Business structure and profit extraction methods
- Ownership of property and investments
- Use of allowances and reliefs (e.g. for CGT, IHT, income tax)
- Succession and retirement planning
- Gifting strategies
- Cross-border issues (e.g. moving abroad, offshore assets)
- Family involvement in business or wealth planning

Following the meeting, we’ll send you a brief report outlining:

Key opportunities for improvement or optimisation
Potential risks or future pitfalls to be aware of
Suggested next steps, should you choose to proceed

All of this comes with no charge and no obligation. If you wish to implement any of the advice, you can instruct us further — or simply use the insights to inform your future decisions.

Real Life, Real Results: Recent Case Studies

To give you a clearer picture of the value of this service, here are two anonymised case studies from clients we’ve recently helped.

Case Study 1: A Trading Business Unintentionally Jeopardises Tax Reliefs

The Situation

The director of a successful trading company had accumulated significant profits. Wanting to make the most of this, they decided to invest in buy-to-let properties through the company. Their reasoning made sense on the surface — strong cash flow, easy lending, and long-term growth.

However, what they didn’t realise was that holding property investments within the trading company blurred the company’s business activities. Over time, the company risked being classified as a non-trading business, which would mean losing access to critical tax reliefs.

The Risks

Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) could be denied if the company wasn’t mainly trading at the time of sale.
Gift Relief — allowing tax-neutral transfers — could also be lost.
Business Property Relief (BPR) for IHT planning might not apply if the company was viewed as investment-focused.

How We Helped

After a thorough review, we advised the client to undertake a capital reduction demerger, separating the investment assets into a separate investment company. This restored the trading status of the original company, protecting valuable tax reliefs for future disposals or inheritance planning.

The process was managed with full transparency. We worked closely with the client’s legal team to ensure tax efficiency and compliance throughout.

Case Study 2: Timing a Business Sale with a Move Abroad

The Situation

Our client — a long-time business owner — was ready to sell up and retire overseas. They had an offer on the table and were prepared to pay 10% CGT under BADR. Their plan was to sell, pay tax, and move shortly after.

Our Insight

After reviewing the timeline, we spotted an opportunity. If they were willing to delay the sale slightly and become non-UK tax resident before the disposal, they could potentially eliminate their UK CGT liability entirely.

The Tax Rule

UK residents are typically taxed on their worldwide gains. However, under split-year treatment and non-residence rules, someone who sells shares while non-UK resident (and remains non-resident for at least five years) may not be subject to UK CGT — provided the shares aren’t in UK land/property companies and temporary non-residence rules don’t apply.

The Result

By restructuring their timeline, the client achieved a 100% tax saving on the gain, which would have otherwise triggered a tax bill. This advice alone paid for itself many times over.

Why This Matters to You

Whether you’re selling a business, investing in property, gifting assets to children, or planning retirement, tax planning can significantly impact the wealth you keep and the legacy you leave.

Many clients come to us believing everything is in order — only to discover missed reliefs, misaligned structures, or decisions that could lead to future tax shocks. In many cases, small, manageable changes can make a big difference.

Even if you’re not facing a specific issue, it’s worth asking: