Tax for Entrepreneurs & growing businesses

Our tax team advise a range of entrepreneurs, family businesses, new start-ups, scaling businesses and their management teams on the tax opportunities and challenges of growing a business and developing new products and services.

Tax will be a consideration at every level from incentivising senior executives and managing share ownership to securing a property, selling products and managing succession or management buyouts. There are also various reliefs and tax breaks available to support start-up businesses and scaling businesses and to help ensure that tax isn’t a barrier to growth and success, which will vary by country if you are operating internationally.

We regularly advise growing business on the tax issues around expansion, corporate structures and employee incentives, as well as the reliefs that are available to support, including:

• Enterprise Management Incentive schemes, which can help to manage income tax liabilities for employees investing in the business. 
• Business asset disposal relief (formerly entrepreneurs’ relief) – helping to reduce the tax rate when qualifying shares in a trading company are sold. 
• Other Government approved employee incentive schemes including the Company Share Option Plan and Save As You Earn scheme – generally less popular due to the lower value of options and the more complex administration. 
• Growth shares – enabling participation in the proceeds of sale on an exit above a certain ‘threshold’ 
• Employee ownership trusts – set up, structure and ongoing management
• Tax incentives schemes - Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) for very early-stage companies and Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) for slightly larger companies.

Tax compliance and tax liabilities can slow down and be a barrier to growth and realising value in a growing business.  We provide the pragmatic, forward looking guidance and advice to ensure that those barriers don’t hinder long term success.