ABOUT TAX COMPASS • TAX-PLANNING REVIEW AND COORDINATION
Tax Compass is a nine-person tax-planning review and coordination team with more than 20 years’ combined experience across business and owner-director tax-planning matters.
We help profitable UK business owners examine whether the way they trade, incur tax, retain profits and access value remains appropriate for the business they operate today.
We do not attempt to provide every professional discipline in-house. Where formal accounting, taxation, legal or implementation expertise is required, we coordinate appropriately qualified external professionals selected according to the circumstances of the case.
One internal team • Appropriate specialist input • Clearly defined responsibilities
Routine accounting and tax compliance are essential. However, questions concerning business structure, ownership, Corporation Tax, remuneration, retained profits and extraction can cross several different professional disciplines.
Tax Compass provides one coordinated starting point.
We bring together the relevant business information, identify the matters that may merit specialist examination and help ensure that the appropriate questions reach the appropriate professionals.
Our role is to make a complex position easier to navigate without oversimplifying it.
A properly considered tax-planning review must begin with the client’s actual circumstances.
That means understanding more than a single tax figure. The business activity, ownership structure, profitability, working-capital requirements, personal objectives and longer-term plans may all affect which options are genuinely appropriate.
Our role is to help ensure that:
The objective is straightforward: to help clients obtain considered, specialist input that is relevant to their business, technically supportable and capable of being implemented correctly.
OUR INTERNAL TEAM
The Tax Compass internal team is responsible for providing a consistent point of contact throughout the review and coordination process.
The team brings together experience across business tax planning, owner-director matters, financial review, client coordination and the practical requirements involved in moving from an initial question to a properly supported conclusion.
Every person involved should have a clearly defined role. Clients should understand who they are speaking to, what that person is responsible for and when an external professional has been engaged to undertake specialist work.
Some matters can be assessed by the internal Tax Compass team during the initial review. Others require formal examination by a professional with the appropriate qualifications, experience and responsibility.
Depending on the circumstances, this may include:
The external professional undertaking the work remains responsible for the formal advice, technical conclusions, documentation or specialist service they provide within their professional remit.
Tax Compass remains the central point of coordination, helping the different parties work from the relevant facts and address the connected issues in the appropriate sequence.
Where suitable, we can also work alongside a client’s existing accountant rather than replacing them.
The standard of the work matters as much as the potential outcome.
The following principles guide the Tax Compass approach
We should begin with understanding the client’s actual business, financial position and objectives. We do not assume that a particular structure, relief or extraction route will be appropriate.
Formal accounting, taxation or legal advice must remain the responsibility of the appropriately qualified professional providing that advice.
The lowest theoretical tax figure is not automatically the best result.
Cash flow, working capital, investment requirements, flexibility, administration, cost and commercial risk must also be considered.
The proposed scope of paid work, the professionals involved and the applicable fees should be explained before the client decides whether to proceed.
A free initial review does not create an obligation to purchase further services.
Technical issues should be explained clearly enough for the client to understand:
The purpose of a review is not to recommend change in every case.
If further specialist work appears worthwhile, we will explain why. If the existing position remains appropriate, we will say so.
Tax-planning reviews can involve commercially and personally sensitive information.
Information provided to Tax Compass should be used only for the legitimate purposes connected with the initial review, agreed professional work and applicable legal or regulatory requirements.
Where information needs to be shared with an external professional, this should be done only to the extent reasonably required for that professional to undertake the relevant work.
Further information about how personal data is collected, used and protected is provided in our privacy and data-security policies.
If your business has become more profitable but its tax arrangements have remained largely unchanged, an initial review can establish whether anything deserves closer examination. Tell us how you currently trade, what the business generates and what you want to achieve.
Your Free Initial Review
Share your details and company figures. Our specialist team will assess whether a closer review may be worthwhile.
We review the information you provide.
A specialist contacts you to discuss the figures.
You decide whether you would like to proceed.