You’ve put time, hard work, dedication, and determination into building your business. And businesses are demanding – sometimes at the expense of your own financial wellbeing, or that of your employees. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Our Corporate Services are designed to make sure you have all aspects of managing company finances covered; from auto-enrolment, scaling up tax-efficiently, to planning your exit strategy. 

And we also make sure that we look after you as the Company Director. The more you achieve at work, the more you’re rewarded – and decisions around managing that extra money can become even more complex.  

Careful planning for the long-term is key to managing your finances confidently. Our specialised Corporate Services will help you achieve that.  

If you’re a company director or business owner, it is your legal duty to understand what a Qualifying Scheme is in regard to providing workplace pensions. You need to know how the Scheme works, and what you must comply with, by law.  

From April 2019, employer contributions are a minimum of 3%, and member contributions are at least 5% (this includes 1% rate tax relief), making a total of 8%. 

Since auto-enrolment can appear complicated, you may want some guidance to be sure that your business is compliant, and we’d be happy to help answer your questions.  

The value of a pension will be directly linked to the performance of the funds you select and the value can therefore go down as well as up. You may get back less than you invested. 

The levels and bases of taxation, and reliefs from taxation, can change at any time.  The value of any tax relief depends on individual circumstances. 

Auto-Enrolment products are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

As a shareholder, your goal is to continue growing the business to its full potential. Will those who follow in your footsteps share that same goal, and to what extent?  

Your fellow shareholders may find themselves working alongside partners with little or no interest in the business and your beneficiaries will inherit shares that are harder to sell. 

We can help you equip your fellow shareholders with the means to purchase your shares. That way, the money from your shareholding can be handed over to the people you want  – your beneficiaries.  

We all have the right to expect a fair salary for what we do, and an increasingly wide range of benefits, from bonuses to wellbeing and fitness schemes. You’ll build a workforce who feel appreciated and valued for what they do, and you’ll stand out in the crowded marketplace as a great company to work with.   

Creating a top-flight employee benefit strategy that works for you, your bottom line and your workforce is a powerful tool. And since salaries and bonuses play such a large part in employee benefits, it makes sense to work with a financial adviser to create a cost effective strategy that can really help everything run smoothly. 

These are some of the areas you could offer: 

• Total Reward Statements online – so your employees can see and understand more about the cost of the benefits you’re providing 
• Flexible Benefits - this lets your employees pick and choose between benefits to create a package that suits them and what they care about. 
• Salary Sacrifice arrangements - these work both ways. Your staff have access to tax-efficient benefits, and you reduce your National Insurance costs
• Private Medical Insurance - looking after your employees' health and wellbeing means less time off work and a happier, healthier workforce
• Group Life, Income Protection and Critical Illness - these are all key components in a responsible employee benefits package. They also help you manage your business more effectively by: 
  • Supporting your employees financially during difficult times  
  • Enabling you to fill in behind absent staff with temporary support  
  • Providing access to a range of rehabilitation services, employee assistance programmes and absence management services so you comply with the law and keep your operations running as smoothly as possible.

The levels and bases of taxation, and reliefs from taxation, can change at any time.  The value of any tax relief depends on individual circumstances.

Nobody wants to pay any more tax than they have to. We can show you simple steps you, as a company owner, can take to reduce your Corporation Tax liability. Steps which are completely legal tax mitigation strategies, not tax avoidance.   

Here are the steps to consider: 

Company pension contributions

Any contributions your company makes to a pension scheme are usually fully deductible when calculating how much you’ll need to pay in Corporation Tax.   

Remuneration strategy

How much salary you take obviously dictates how much tax you pay. So it’s worth considering whether you could reduce your salary to a level where you can still claim state benefits – and then make up the difference through company dividends.  

There’s no National Insurance on dividends, plus they don’t have a tax consequence for your company.  

Claiming Allowances

If you want to reduce your Corporation Tax, it’s really important to claim all the allowances you can. Research and Development Tax Credits and Capital Allowances are often only partially claimed or overlooked completely.   You can talk to us at any time for some expert guidance on any of these allowances.  

The levels and bases of taxation, and reliefs from taxation, can change at any time and are dependent on individual circumstances.   

Many business owners put in a lifetime of hard work building their business, only to throw away some of the rewards by not making an exit that profits them both personally and professionally, if they remain as the business owner.  

Sound management over several years will add value to your business and allow you to exit relatively quickly and smoothly when the time is right.  

Here’s what you need to focus on:  

• Aim for a year-on-year increase in profits – reducing profits to cut Corporation Tax liabilities may make sense today but might harm your business’s market worth in the future. 
• Make sure your accounts are in order, up to date and give a true picture of the business – it pays to be ready for any due diligence you may have to go through later. 
• Expand your range of customers and suppliers – if you appear to be over-reliant on a few key customers you’ll undermine the value of your business to potential buyers. 
• Client Retention - aim to tie key customers, suppliers, staff and managers into long-term contracts. 
• Maximise your relief for Capital Gains Tax (CGT) – you may be able to claim Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) which reduces the effective rate of CGT. Try to steer away from substantial holdings in property, shares or leaving money in the bank which may disqualify you from this relief. 

The levels and bases of taxation, and reliefs from taxation, can change at any time and are dependent on individual circumstances.  

Exit Strategies may include products and services that are separate and distinct to those offered by St. James's Place.