CRC

Travel day ✈️

Although the majority of our team are based in Orkney, our clients are spread across Scotland.

Travel day today as we head to the central belt for some in person meetings.

Always nice to be in Sunny Edinburgh! 🌞

Grin and bear it… 

6 hours of filming. A whole bank of lovely footage. 

But no audio. Not even on a single clip…. 😑😑😑

You can check and check again, but sometimes stuff just doesn’t go as planned! 

Take 2 incoming!

Pension contributions - still one of the most tax efficient vehicles around!

Despite the upcoming changes to pensions for IHT, they are still extremely tax efficient ways to invest any extra cash you have sitting in your company. 

With up to 25% corporation tax relief available, you can be saving up to a whopping £15,000 in tax each year!

Better still, the pension pot benefits from tax efficient growth whilst it’s invested. 

Of course, you need to balance your company’s near term cashflow needs, with your personal long term tax-efficient financial planning. 

You should only lock away money which isn’t needed by the company here and now. 

But with a good accountant on your side, you’ll be able to plan where your money is best invested at any given time!

What do you actually want? 

From your business? And for your life outside the workplace?

Being in business, it’s easy to get lost in the day to day. Conflicting priorities, customer & team demands. Wearing many hats. 

It’s easy to lose sight of why you started it all in the first place. 

But how often do you actually take a step back and think about what you want from your business?

After all, your business is there to serve you. 

We take a keen interest helping business owners get clear on what they truly want. Because once we all know this, we can get to work on helping ensure the business keeps on track - and delivers what it’s capable of!

Is your business ACTUALLY profitable?

We don’t like taking accounts at face value. Instead, beneath the P&L, we want to understand the true health of businesses.

Sometimes, what can look profitable on paper, can in fact be a silent loss-maker.

Here are 3 simple ways you can health check your business:

1. Your own wage - is the business making enough money that it could pay you a market rate wage for ALL the hours you put in?

2. Asset base - is it generating enough profit to keep replenishing the ageing assets?

3. Return on investment (ROI) - if we were to look at your whole business value, is the profit it makes a decent ROI? Or would you be better selling up, and investing your money elsewhere?

Knowing the true position is just the starting point.

The next step is sorting out your business, to ensure you’re generating the returns it’s capable of!

When £1m became £2.5m! 😎

From April 2026, the first £2.5m of your trading business can be exempt from Inheritance Tax. 

This applies per taxpayer, and is transferrable between spouses on death - meaning you could have an exempt amount of £5m as a couple. 

The government had previously announced a lower limit of just £1m per taxpayer. Potentially a huge cost, and operational disruption to many family businesses!

But thankfully - after much lobbying - they’ve backtracked on the bulk of that decision.

We take a keen focus on ensuring our clients maintain their ‘trading’ status, and keep this valuable relief on the table. 

We want to minimise business disruption on death, and ensure the legacy you build is kept by those who matter to you - rather than disappearing back to the tax man!

The hidden truth of the Scottish Budget… 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Headline figures might state that most taxpayers would be better off in Scotland. But in reality, the Scottish tax system is still much more expensive than the rest of the UK. 

This latest Scottish Budget hasn’t made it any easier for Scottish businesses to attract and retain talent - meaning they’re going to have to get smart about how they incentivise their team!

If your business wants to discuss the options available to you, feel free to get in touch!

Feeling the pinch from your Payments On Account?

It’s tax deadline month, and lots of business owners might be feeling the impact of HMRC’s payment on account system.

To help with this, we always recommend budgeting your tax liability throughout the year, and setting the HMRC portion aside.

This helps you know what money is yours (and yours to keep), and what money is simply being held on behalf of HMRC. Most importantly, it saves any nasty surprises in January & July!

So even if your 2024/25 tax liability has caught you by surprise - let’s make 2026 the year where you get back on top of your cashflow!