Tax Compliance and Advisory

Ensuring full compliance with HMRC while structuring your affairs to legitimately minimise the tax you pay.

Tax should never be a nasty surprise. Yet for many owner-managed businesses it is exactly that: a bill that turns up nine months after the year end, bigger than expected, just when cash is tight. The fix is not clever schemes. It is paying attention all year round, planning ahead, and making the most of the reliefs the law already gives you.

We do not wait for your year end to think about your tax position. We monitor, plan and advise throughout the year, spotting opportunities and flagging risks before they become problems.

What is included

• Business tax and corporation tax
• Capital allowances advice
• Taking money out of your business tax-efficiently

Corporation tax, handled properly

We prepare your company's corporation tax computation and return from your year-end accounts, claim every relief and allowance you are entitled to, and file it with HMRC on time. Because we prepare the year-end accounts too, the starting point for your tax return, the accounting profit, always agrees with them.

Just as importantly, we tell you what you owe well before you have to pay it. For most companies corporation tax is payable nine months and one day after the end of the accounting period, three months before the return itself is due. Where we also prepare your management accounts or act as your fractional finance director, we give you an estimate during the year, so the money is set aside rather than found at the last minute.

Corporation tax is charged at different rates depending on your profits, with a lower small profits rate, a higher main rate, and marginal relief in between. Where profits sit close to a threshold, bringing planned spending forward, such as repairs, can be sensible, and we will point out when it does.

Capital allowances advice

When your business buys equipment, machinery, vehicles, computers or some fixtures in a building, the cost is not deducted from profits in the usual way. Instead, you claim capital allowances. The rules offer generous relief for many kinds of investment, including the Annual Investment Allowance and, for companies, full expensing on qualifying new plant and machinery, but what qualifies, and when, is not always obvious.

We make sure every qualifying purchase is claimed in the right way, and we are happy to talk through a significant purchase before you make it, because the timing and the way it is structured can change the tax relief you receive.

Taking money out of your business tax-efficiently

If you own and run a limited company, how you take money out of it matters. Salary, dividends and interest on a director's loan account are each taxed differently, and the best mix for you depends on the company's profits, your other income and what you are planning for.

We look at your whole picture each year, recommend a sensible and fully compliant way to take money out of the business, and revisit it when the rates or your circumstances change. The aim is simple: no more tax than the law requires, and no nasty surprises.

Proactive, not reactive

Good tax advice is mostly about timing. A conversation in the third quarter of your financial year is worth far more than one after it has ended. So we build a short tax review into the year, look at how profits are tracking, and raise anything worth acting on while there is still time to act.

We also keep an eye on changes in the rules that affect you, and tell you about them in plain English, with what, if anything, you need to do.

Who does the work

Tax at CrestWell is handled by Omar Ahmed Khan ACA, an ICAEW Chartered Accountant with over fifteen years of experience, including at Deloitte, one of the Big 4. CrestWell is regulated by ICAEW. You deal with Omar directly, and he will always explain the reasoning behind any recommendation, so that you can make the decision with your eyes open.

Getting started

1. A free consultation, to understand your business and how you currently handle tax.
2. A review of your position, including your last returns and anything coming up.
3. An agreed scope and fee, confirmed in writing before we start.
4. A year-round relationship, with deadlines tracked for you and a planning conversation before your year end.

We are based in Crawley and work with businesses across Crawley, East Grinstead, Horsham, Haywards Heath and Horley, and with clients across the UK and abroad, travelling for the meetings that matter.