Accountants

We share a common purpose with accountants in wanting to achieve two key targets for our clients:

1. To ensure that their wealth grows in a controlled and protected way.
2. To reduce the amount of tax they pay, both now and in the future.

We work closely with our partner accountants to achieve these aims, ensuring that the strategies recommended by both parties are cohesive and achieve the best possible outcome for the client. 

We have the expertise to advise both individuals and business clients; we can arrange the investment and protection solutions most appropriate to their needs.  For businesses, our service also includes the provision of staff pension and benefit packages.

Personal Tax Planning

Our advisers have a wealth of experience in advising clients about tax-efficient investments – from ISAs to Venture Capital Trusts, there are a range of options that the client can consider.

Business Tax Planning

Ensuring that any business profits are maximised and that businesses taxes are kept to a minimum is a clear common goal for both accountants and financial advisers.  We work with our partners to ensure that business clients’ pay and dividend strategies are tax-efficient and that business investments achieve the highest possible return within the parameters of the client’s needs (investment term, accessibility, etc).

Retirement Planning

Pensions are a key aspect of wealth management and our advisers can ensure that clients are aware of all the options available.  Self-invested pension schemes are becoming increasingly popular and we can advise on both the advantages and the disadvantages of this type of pension investment.

Estate Planning

We work closely with our partner accountants to ensure that clients have the best possible planning measures in place to reduce their exposure to Inheritance Tax.  For example:

• How is the client’s property owned?  If it’s in joint ownership, has the ownership been set up to take advantage of each co-owner’s nil rate band?
• Is the client making the most of all the family’s tax free allowances?
• Could trusts be used to ring-fence assets so that they are not taken into account when inheritance tax is due?
• Would an insurance based policy or trust that pays out on death to cover inheritance tax be the right solution for the client?

Exit Planning/Succession Planning

The thorny issue of how to dispose of a business or pass it on to others requires careful planning.  We work with our accountancy partners to ensure that the right arrangements are put in place to achieve the objectives of both the departing director/owner and those in whose hands the business has been left.

Protection

Reducing both individual and business clients’ exposure to risk is a critical part of financial planning, and we work with our clients’ accountants to ensure that key income streams are maintained in difficult times.