Tax Advisory

What we look at, in order, in a tax planning session

Planning is not about optimising one tax; it is about seeing where the three interact. So we map the activity first, then look at which reliefs can actually be applied.

1. Mapping the activity and revenue streams

   What the revenue is, who it comes from, of what character, and where it arises. This is the ground for everything else, because most of the reliefs the law grants are tied to the character of the income; get that wrong and every later step starts from the wrong place.

2. Which exemptions and deductions actually apply

   Not every relief in the legislation fits every structure. Here we filter the list down to the ones that fit, and mark for each whether its conditions are met today. Building a plan on a relief you cannot actually use undermines the plan from the start.

3. Whether the conditions can be documented

   What matters is not the exemption itself but whether it can be defended. Here we ask whether the document a review would request exists today, and if not, what recording discipline needs to be set up. A relief you cannot document is not a relief but a deferred risk.

4. Planning income, corporate and VAT together

   The three are planned together rather than separately, because a decision in one has consequences in another. A choice that minimises one tax can produce a heavier burden overall. The comparison is made on the total.

5. Tax obligations on cross-border transactions

   The exemption conditions on sales abroad; withholding and reverse-charge VAT on services bought from abroad; which article of the relevant double tax treaty applies. Because these payments leave through the bank, they often reach the books as nothing more than a cost, and get missed.

6. Tracking the gap between advance tax and the year-end position

   The gap between what was filed during the year and the year-end position is corrected in the annual return. Knowing the size of that gap in December is different from learning it in January; in December decisions are still open.

7. Payment calendar and cash plan

   The filing and payment calendar is overlaid on the company cash calendar. The point is to know in advance which months carry the large payments and where cash will be in them. A tax payment you saw coming does not send you looking for financing.

8. Risk inventory and the routes to correction

   An honest list of what is still open from earlier periods, and which route remains available for each. Voluntary disclosure and amended returns can be used before a review begins and close once it has. That makes timing more decisive than the amount.