Retirement planning in family company

For years, I had been frustrated at not being able to get advice about how I could pass my business on to my daughter and son-in-law.

My bank manager put me on to K&H and they produced a detailed three-year plan and restructured the shares so I could pass the business down in exactly the way I wanted. Not only that, but the new share structure allowed us to save tax and improve company cash flow hugely. The total tax savings will have amounted to over £800k.

K&H did a great job of explaining everything to us in layman’s terms so we felt in full control of what was happening.

Ref: 0011

Total saved: more than £800,000

Entrepreneur’s Relief helps in retirement plan

I had made my son managing director of my family company and managed to start working much less in the business, but there was no clear path forward that would allow me to pass on ownership of the company. The company is very profitable – I was taking money out and paying huge amounts of tax.

My IFA put me on to K&H and they did a detailed fact-find, covering my own phased retirement plans and family estate planning needs. They produced a plan to pass ownership across but keeping the full value of the business in the family in a way that allowed me to benefit from Entrepreneur’s Relief.

This saved us tax of more than £1.3 million without using any high-risk tax avoidance schemes.

Ref: 0012

Total saved: £1.3 million

Exit planning and going limited

I went to a K&H exit planning seminar years ago and they gave me some ideas about how we could start to make succession plans to allow our management team to take over from us while taking advantage of various tax saving opportunities.

Our old accountants seemed unable to help us with this, so we went back to K&H and asked them to help.

K&H were far more imaginative and flexible in their approach and they produced a detailed plan, working closely with our solicitors. It enabled us to move the LLP business into a limited company and so allow us to create share options for the management team. This gave us significant tax savings over the initial planning alone.

Ref: 0013 

Total saved: Significant

Exit planning and group restructuring

I had a number of companies with different shareholders and no clear plan about how I would retire. K&H produced a ten-year retirement plan for me that tidied up the group structure, changed the shareholding and set up share options for three new senior managers.

As a result of the new share structure, we are saving 15% of our payroll costs and the business has benefited hugely from the extra cash flow this has created. K&H have been brilliant throughout the three years that we have been working together.

Ref: 0014 

Total saved: £400k

Exit and share planning with property/pension planning

I had been concerned for years that we were not taking money out of the company in the most tax-efficient way, but our old accountants seemed unable to help us change. We also needed guidance to put in place a plan for the succession of the business, to allow me to take over a larger stake in the business, in a tax-efficient way, from the partner approaching retirement.

K&H came in and carried out an investigation into the background of the company, and into the personal goals and family circumstances of myself and my partner. From that, they produced a share restructuring and dividend remuneration plan that could save us about £60,000 a year, and a succession plan to allow ownership to pass across in a controlled and tax efficient way.

The total cost savings are about £60k a year, which we can use to repay our bank loan years ahead of schedule, plus ensuring that we will benefit from 10% Entrepreneur’s Relief tax.

Ref: 0015 

Total saved: £320k

Going limited and share structuring

I have worked with K&H on mutual clients for a number of years and seen how they have been able to help clients see the way forward and in a way that costs them nothing because of eliminating unnecessary tax bills. I asked our accountants to do the same for us but, after badgering them for ages, their advice was that we could not benefit.

I asked K&H to review this and they found a more creative solution that enabled us to move to a limited company, with all the commercial and tax benefits that this allowed. They also found a way to allow us to sell our LLP goodwill across, despite advice from others that this was impossible because of regulatory restrictions.

We expect to save tax of about £200k over the next five years and improve cash flow considerably as a result of K&H’s advice.

Ref: 0016 

Total saved: £200k

Exit planning and developing management team

As an SME, getting access to good quality professional advice that enhances the corporate efficiency of a business is a quest not always achieved. We were introduced to K&H via our financial adviser as we were aware that we were not taking full advantage of professional corporate advice concerning tax planning and opportunities to incentivise the senior management team.

Given a complicated share structure with numerous minority shareholders and non-executive directors all with varying views on how the company should be run, consensus is hard to attain. K&H has successfully engaged with management to implement a series of corporate changes and identified savings of over £100k a year as a result.

We now have a very successful company with motivated employees who are capable of taking over the business from us in the long term.

Ref: 0017

Total saved: £500k