Buying & Selling

When contemplating acquisition or sale, we will provide essential advice and assistance throughout the process, and make sure that you achieve the best possible tax outcomes from your deal.

Taxation planning plays a crucial role in the arena of acquisitions and disposals. Badly managed tax can make a transaction simply unaffordable, either in absolute terms or in cashflow terms. Whereas tax managed well can close a commercial gap between the buyer and the seller. Early advice and assistance is essential to plan your approach to the target event and maximise your chances of the best outcome.

Advice to buyers

In pursuit of acquisitions, buyers will try to achieve reliefs for the prices paid and costs incurred, wherever possible. They will seek to minimise their exposure to things like Stamp Duty and Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) and also to potentially catastrophic VAT implications if they are not adequately factored in. Buyers will also need to protect themselves against potential “back duty” liabilities which might come to light, in the businesses they have bought, after they have paid and taken control. Our routine advisory procedures take care of the planning and the protection.

Advice to sellers

Where disposals are concerned, sellers will normally want to minimise the tax arising on their proceeds, often wanting to ensure that the “trickier-than-you-might-realise” 10% rate of Capital Gains tax known as Entrepreneurs’ Relief, is safely achieved. Sellers will also need to understand the various tax risks and implications associated with deferred proceeds and contingent proceeds, negotiating to remove those risks in the deal as far as possible, without reducing the gross monies achievable or inhibiting the deal. Sellers also need tax protection in the contract, not least because they will likely be subject to tax indemnities given at a time when they hand over control of their company’s tax affairs to the buyer.

How can we help?

We advise businesses and their owners of the tax implications and opportunities through every stage of a trade sale, from planning through to execution. For more information, click here to consult our brochure which looks at 5 key areas of transactional tax support or contact tax@haroldsharp.co.uk.

“We follow a simple principle laid out by our founders: It’s not about keeping up. It’s about staying ahead.”

Chris Wrighton,
Director

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