Tax advisory and tax planning services from Chartered Tax Advisers
Our tax advisory services help you plan your affairs in advance so you keep more of what you earn, rather than just reporting what has already happened. As Chartered Tax Advisers, we advise on profit extraction, business sales, reorganisations, property, Inheritance Tax and HMRC enquiries, and in most cases the tax we save exceeds our fee. We meet clients at our offices in London (Upper Woburn Place, Bloomsbury), Manchester (Stalybridge) and Potters Bar, or by video.
Tax planning is not about avoidance. It’s about making sure every legitimate relief, allowance and structure available to you under UK law is actively used, before the opportunity closes. At Merit Accountants, our Chartered Tax Advisers deliver structured, year-round tax planning services.
Our managing partner and other members of our team hold CTA (Chartered Tax Adviser) status awarded by the Chartered Institute of Taxation. Because our team includes professionals who have worked inside HMRC, we understand not just what the law says but how HMRC applies it in practice, and we have used that knowledge to overturn HMRC assessments and penalties, recover overpaid tax and plan clients’ tax over many years, not just the current one.
You can see what our advice has saved clients in our corporation tax reliefs and capital allowances case studies.
What is tax advisory, and how is it different from accountancy?
Most businesses have an accountant, but few have a tax adviser, and the two do different jobs.
An accountant records what happened and ensures you are compliant. A tax adviser plans what should happen and ensures you are paying only what you legally owe. At Merit Accountants, we do both, but it is the advisory layer that delivers the most measurable financial benefit for our clients.
Our tax advisory service covers both business and personal taxation, meaning we look at your entire financial picture (company profits, directors’ remuneration, dividends, property income, investments, pension contributions and inheritance planning) and create a strategy that minimises the overall tax burden across all of them.
What is a Chartered Tax Adviser?
A Chartered Tax Adviser holds the CTA qualification awarded by the Chartered Institute of Taxation, the highest tax qualification in the UK. It is examined over several written papers that test both the technical law and how it applies to real client situations, and members are bound by the Institute’s professional conduct rules and ongoing training requirements. Only members of the Institute who have passed the CTA examinations and completed three years of relevant experience can use the CTA designation, and you can check a member on the Chartered Institute of Taxation’s online register.
The difference shows in the questions you are asked. A Chartered Tax Adviser looks at what is about to happen: how profits should leave the company, whether a property belongs inside or outside it, what a sale will cost in capital gains tax, or how to respond to an HMRC enquiry.
Merit’s tax advisory work is led by Hussein Bhaiji FCCA CTA, Managing Partner, who brings over 20 years of UK tax expertise with tenures at HMRC and at top 20 UK accounting firms. He won the prestigious Chris Jones Prize from the Chartered Institute of Taxation. Because Merit is also a firm of Chartered Certified Accountants, the tax advice and the accounts sit under one roof, so nothing is lost between the two.
Our tax planning services: a structured year-round approach
We do not wait until January to think about your tax bill. Our advisory framework operates across the full financial year:
Monthly monitoring (full-service clients)
Ongoing review of your financial position against your tax forecast. We flag any changes in income, expenditure or legislation that require action.
Quarterly tax planning review
A formal review every quarter covering your current tax position, any changes in tax legislation or HMRC practice, available reliefs for the period and recommended actions. You will know what is coming and when, with enough notice to do something about it.
Six-monthly strategy review
A full review of your overall tax strategy, including personal and business taxation, investment structures, property holdings and pension planning. We revisit your long-term strategy and update it for any changes in your financial circumstances.
Pre-year-end tax planning session
Usually the most useful meeting of the year. In the weeks before your year end, we identify every action that can legally reduce your tax liability for the closing year. This single meeting is where most of the savings are found.
Annual tax strategy report
A written summary of your tax position, strategies implemented, savings achieved and recommendations for the year ahead. This becomes the foundation for the following year’s planning.
Examples of our tax planning
Rates and rules are stated as at October 2026.
Rent instead of dividends
A director personally owns the unit his company trades from, and the company has never paid him rent for it. He already pays higher rate tax, and the company pays corporation tax at 25%. Paid as a dividend, £30,000 of profit becomes £22,500 after corporation tax, and £14,456 after dividend tax at 35.75%. Paid as rent at no more than the market rate, the same £30,000 is deductible for the company (section 54 CTA 2009) and leaves him £18,000 after income tax at 40%.
That is £3,544 more every year, or £2,344 once the property higher rate applies from April 2027 to taxpayers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, at the 44% announced in Budget 2026. Finance Act 2026 also gives the Senedd and the Scottish Parliament power to set their own property income rates, so the figures may differ in Wales and Scotland. Rent attracts no National Insurance, so above a modest salary it also beats extra salary, although only salary builds State Pension qualifying years and counts as relevant earnings for personal pension contributions.
The catch comes on exit. When he sells the building as part of withdrawing from the business, alongside a sale of at least 5% of the company’s ordinary share capital, it can qualify for Business Asset Disposal Relief, provided the company used it in the business throughout the two years before the share sale and he has owned it for at least three years (section 169K TCGA 1992). Rent restricts that relief (section 169P TCGA 1992). The restriction reflects how long rent is paid after 5 April 2008 and how far it falls short of a market rent, so the years he has let the company use the unit rent-free qualify in full, while each year of full market rent removes the relief for that year.
If the gain on his shares will on its own use up whatever remains of his £1m lifetime limit (£500,000 for disposals from 6 April 2027), there is no relief left for the building anyway, because the limit applies to his qualifying gains cumulatively (section 169N TCGA 1992), so the restriction costs him nothing. Even where relief is at stake, it is worth 6p in the pound of gain (24% less 18%). We compare the two before the lease is drawn up.
(Figures are illustrative, ignore property costs and VAT, and assume he is not a Scottish taxpayer, has already used his £500 dividend allowance and keeps his income under £100,000.)
See more examples in our owner-managed business tax case studies.
Selling to an employee ownership trust after the 2025 Budget
An owner expects a £4m gain on selling his company. Sold to a trade buyer, with Business Asset Disposal Relief the first £1m is taxed at 18% and the rest at 24%, giving £900,000 of capital gains tax. Sold to an employee ownership trust with EOT relief claimed, half the gain has been held over since 26 November 2025, by reducing the trustees’ base cost (before that date, all of it was). The other half is taxed at 24%, because Business Asset Disposal Relief is not available where EOT relief is claimed (section 236H(2A) TCGA 1992): £480,000, a saving of £420,000.
These figures assume the sale takes place before 6 April 2027. Budget 2026 halves the Business Asset Disposal Relief lifetime limit to £500,000 for disposals from that date, which would add £30,000 to the tax on the trade sale. Our Budget 2026 summary explains the change.
The price is usually paid out of the company’s future profits. Where it is payable in instalments over more than 18 months, he can ask to pay the tax in instalments too (section 280 TCGA 1992). HMRC sets the schedule, which can run for up to eight years but must end by the date the last instalment of the price is due, and in practice HMRC expects tax equal to half of each instalment of the price. We also model whether the company can fund the payments without starving the business.
The relief and the conditions the trust and company must meet are in sections 236H to 236U TCGA 1992. For sales since 30 October 2024, former owners and people connected with them must make up less than half of the trustees and must not control the trust (section 236LA TCGA 1992), and HMRC can claw back the relief from the seller if the conditions fail before the end of the fourth tax year after the tax year of the sale. So this route can suit an owner who wants to stay on as a director or employee, provided he accepts that the trust, not he, will control the company.
(Both figures ignore the £3,000 annual exempt amount, which does not change the saving, and assume he is a higher rate taxpayer who has not used any of his £1m Business Asset Disposal Relief limit.)
Business tax advice and planning
Our business tax advisory covers corporation tax, VAT, PAYE, CIS and all associated reliefs. For groups, we also check how associated companies share the £50,000 and £250,000 corporation tax limits.
The areas where we most often find savings for business clients are:
- R&D relief under the merged scheme
- Capital allowances on plant, machinery and property
- The Employment Allowance
- Directors’ salary and dividend structuring
- Exit planning, including Business Asset Disposal Relief at 18% on up to £1 million of lifetime gains (£500,000 for disposals from 6 April 2027)
- EIS and SEIS for qualifying companies
Profit extraction
Salary and dividends are only the start. Dividend tax rose by two percentage points in April 2026, to 10.75% at the ordinary rate and 35.75% at the upper rate, while the additional rate stays at 39.35%. For a higher rate director, each £1,000 of dividend now costs £357.50 in personal tax, so salary, pension contributions and rent are worth comparing again.
We also look at employer pension contributions, rent on property you own personally, and timing dividends across tax years so each one lands in the cheapest band.
Capital allowances timing
The Annual Investment Allowance gives 100% relief on up to £1m a year of spending on plant and machinery other than cars. The limit is reduced for accounting periods shorter than 12 months, and one allowance is shared within a group of companies and between other companies under common control that share premises or carry on similar activities (sections 51A to 51N CAA 2001). Companies can also claim full expensing, with no cap, on new and unused main rate plant other than cars and assets bought for leasing, and a 50% first-year allowance on new special rate assets. Since 1 January 2026 a 40% first-year allowance has also been available on new and unused main rate plant other than cars (section 45U CAA 2001). Unlike full expensing, it can cover plant bought for leasing where the lessee uses it within the charge to UK tax, and sole traders and partnerships can claim it as well as companies. Spending that goes into the main pool now gets writing-down allowances at 14% rather than 18% (from 1 April 2026 for companies and 6 April 2026 for income tax), so the timing of a purchase matters more than it did. Budget 2026 cuts the rate again, to 12% from 1 April 2027 for companies and 6 April 2027 for sole traders and partnerships, and raises the 40% first-year allowance to 50% for expenditure from 1 January 2027.
For a company with no associated companies, a 12-month accounting period and no dividend income from companies outside its group, each extra £1 of profit between £50,000 and £250,000 is taxed at 26.5% because of marginal relief. So an allowance that falls inside that band saves 26.5p in the pound, against 19p below £50,000 and 25p above £250,000.
We plan large purchases around the year end with this in mind. We also check refurbishment invoices for integral features that often get left in the building cost.
Group structure
The £50,000 and £250,000 limits are divided by the number of associated companies plus one (an associated company is ignored if it carries on no trade or business at any time in the accounting period: section 18E CTA 2010), so a second company set up for a side venture can push both companies into higher rates.
We look at whether a holding company, a separate company or a division of the existing one gives the right result. That includes the effect on BADR, which needs a holding company’s group to be a trading group.
Research and development
For accounting periods starting on or after 1 April 2024, most companies claim under the merged R&D expenditure credit at 20%, which is taxable. Loss-making, R&D-intensive SMEs can still claim enhanced support.
Companies claiming for the first time, or that have not made a claim in the three years ending with the last day of the notification period, must notify HMRC within six months of the end of the period of account, or the claim is invalid. An earlier claim does not count towards that test if it was for an accounting period beginning before 1 April 2023 and was added by amending a return on or after that date (section 1042C(3) CTA 2009).
HMRC scrutinises claims closely, so we test whether the work is genuinely R&D before anyone pays for a claim. We handle R&D claims for many of our tech startup clients.
Business sales and reorganisations
Before a sale, a demerger or a buyback of shares, we check how each route is taxed and apply to HMRC for advance clearance where the legislation allows it, for example under section 138 TCGA 1992 for share exchanges and reconstructions, and section 1044 CTA 2010 for a company buying back its own shares. We also advise on moving a property portfolio into a company, and on family investment companies for passing wealth to the next generation.
Personal tax advice and planning
We advise high earners, property investors, landlords and company directors on:
- Making sure your Self Assessment return claims every relief you are due
- Planning around the 60% effective rate on income between £100,000 and £125,140
- Capital gains tax on property and investments
- Inheritance Tax planning and trusts
- Pension planning
- Residence advice for internationally mobile people, including the four-year foreign income and gains regime that replaced the non-domicile rules in April 2025 and the long-term residence test that now decides Inheritance Tax exposure
Pensions
On personal pensions that use relief at source, relief above the basic rate is not given automatically, including the extra 1% for Scottish intermediate rate taxpayers. The provider adds basic rate relief, and the rest has to be claimed, usually through your Self Assessment return. We regularly find years of it unclaimed, and it can be claimed for up to four years after the end of the tax year concerned (section 43 TMA 1970).
For directors, an employer contribution from the company is usually better still: it carries no National Insurance and is normally deductible for corporation tax in the period it is paid, provided the director’s overall pay package meets the wholly and exclusively test, although an exceptionally large increase may have to be spread over later years (sections 196 and 197 FA 2004). Contributions above the director’s available annual allowance, including any carried forward, trigger a tax charge on the director, so we check that first.
The £100,000 taper
Between £100,000 and £125,140 of adjusted net income the personal allowance is withdrawn at £1 for every £2, so outside Scotland the effective income tax rate on that slice is 60%, or 62% on salary once employee National Insurance is added. For Scottish taxpayers it is 67.5%, or 69.5% on salary.
If either parent expects adjusted net income over £100,000 for the current tax year, the family loses Tax-Free Childcare and, in England, the funded childcare hours for working parents. Wales has its own £100,000 limit for the Childcare Offer, but it is tested on each parent’s gross income before pension contributions and salary sacrifice, so the planning below does not restore it. That is a cliff edge, not a taper, and for a family with two young children it can be worth more than the tax. A pension contribution or a Gift Aid donation can bring adjusted net income back under the line.
Capital gains tax timing
For an unconditional contract, exchange, not completion, fixes the date of disposal (section 28 TCGA 1992); for a conditional contract it is the date the condition is met. That date normally decides the tax year and the rate, although the anti-forestalling rules introduced at the October 2024 Budget apply the rate in force at completion to certain contracts made before those rate changes took effect.
On UK residential property, the 60-day return and payment run from completion, not exchange. UK residents need to file within 60 days only where capital gains tax is due; non-residents must report disposals of UK land and property, including indirect disposals, even where no tax is due, unless the disposal is on a no gain, no loss basis or another narrow exclusion applies (Schedule 2 FA 2019).
Our main levers are splitting a sale across two tax years, using losses and transferring part of the asset before the sale to a spouse or civil partner you live with. That transfer is at no gain, no loss (section 58 TCGA 1992), so their £3,000 annual exempt amount and basic rate band can be used, provided the gift is outright and they own their share when it is sold.
Inheritance tax
From 6 April 2026, 100% Business and Agricultural Property Relief is limited to the first £2.5m per person of property that would otherwise qualify for 100% relief, with 50% relief above that. The £2.5m is one combined allowance. It is used up by gifts of such property in the seven years before death, both gifts to family members that become chargeable because the donor dies within seven years and gifts into trust, although only gifts made on or after 30 October 2024 count. Shares traded on AIM get 50% relief only and do not use the allowance. Any unused part of the allowance can be transferred to a surviving spouse or civil partner on a claim, even where the first death was before 6 April 2026.
For deaths on or after 6 April 2027, most unused pension funds and pension death benefits will form part of the estate; death in service benefits from registered schemes and dependants’ scheme pensions from defined benefit or collective money purchase arrangements are excluded, and benefits passing to a surviving spouse or civil partner remain exempt.
A family company that used to be fully relieved may now carry an IHT bill, so we look at share structures, lifetime gifts and life cover while the owner is still running the business. Our private client tax planning page covers this in more depth.
Start saving on tax
What our track record looks like
In the last two years alone, we’ve saved clients over £9.2 million in tax. Our case studies show how individual savings were made.
Ready to find out how much you could save?
Your first appointment is free and confidential. We will look at your current tax position, tell you where we think savings may exist and explain what the work would involve and what our fixed fee would be. There is no obligation to go ahead.
Tax advisory FAQs
What is tax planning?
Tax planning means reviewing your business or personal affairs in advance so that you pay no more tax than the law requires, rather than simply reporting transactions after the year has ended.
Why is proactive tax planning important?
Because once your year end passes or a transaction completes, many planning options disappear. Proactive planning identifies opportunities while you can still act on them, which usually means more flexibility and better outcomes. For example, a pension contribution or an equipment purchase made a week before the year end can cut that year’s bill, but not one made a week after.
Who needs tax advisory services?
Tax advisory services are most valuable for business owners, company directors, landlords, investors, high earners and groups of companies, and for anyone planning a sale, a restructure, a large gift or a move abroad.
Can you advise on how to reduce company tax legally?
Yes. We review your circumstances and advise on practical, legitimate ways to reduce your corporation tax, including the timing of income and spending, group and company structure, directors’ pay and dividends, and reliefs such as R&D relief and capital allowances where they apply.
Do you offer one-off tax advice as well as ongoing support?
Yes. Some clients come to us for specific one-off advice; others want ongoing, year-round support. We scope the work around your needs and the complexity of the matter.
Is a tax advisor the same as a Chartered Tax Adviser?
Not necessarily. Anyone can call themselves a tax advisor or tax consultant, but only members of the Chartered Institute of Taxation can use the Chartered Tax Adviser designation.
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