Exit Planning

Don’t make selling your business any more taxing than it need be

Thinking of selling your business? Then you are probably aware that the tax environment relating to the sale of businesses has changed dramatically in recent Budgets. In particular:

• changes to the taper relief regime mean an effective ten per cent Capital Gains Tax rate on the sale of trading businesses after just two years’ ownership. Although you may believe your company is trading, the Inland Revenue may not agree; and
• a buyer can now gain tax relief on the amount they spend on intellectual property and goodwill.

While you will probably want to sell shares to take advantage of taper relief, the new tax deduction available on IP and goodwill is an incentive for buyers to structure the deal as a trade and assets purchase – so you need specialist advice to get the most from the sale.

As you prepare your business for sale, and throughout the sales process, we can help you minimise the tax payable on selling your business by advising on issues such as:

• improving your position if your business owns non-trading assets that are preventing you from qualifying for taper relief;
• ensuring no non-business asset taper relief is contaminating your shareholdings;
• what to do if you need to sell before the two-year qualifying period is up; and
• what to do if you need to sell for loan notes after having clocked up two years’ asset taper relief.

Remember that you need to take advice at an early stage to ensure that the deal is structured in the most tax-efficient way.

We work closely with our Dealermatch specialists to provide an integrated advisory team before and during the sale process.