Growing and expanding your business

Our experienced team works with many business owners to guide them through the evolutionary stages. We explain the ever-changing tax legislation in straightforward language and identify how it can benefit you as your business develops and grows.

Once you have settled on your business structure it is important that you do not fall foul of the numerous requirements on record keeping and returns. It is important though to remember that being compliant does not mean paying unnecessary tax, just the right amount. There are a number of tax reliefs potentially available to you including Research and Development tax credits, Patent Box and Allowances for Capital Expenditure. We will spend time with you to gain an understanding of your business and how it operates, so we can best advise on the reliefs potentially available to you.

As your business grows, your people will become increasingly important to its success and you may need to find ways of incentivising them to maintain their loyalty and motivation. There are a number of factors to consider in this looking at the difference between cash, benefits and equity incentives.

The choices are numerous, and the engagement factor will need to be assessed depending on the profile of your employees and, also, your future plans for the business e.g. if you are never looking to sell there is little point in handing out equity incentives as no benefit will ultimately be realised. In these circumstances some form of cash bonus is more likely to be a motivation.

Finally, as noted in our planning and start-ups section, if you are looking to raise money further to develop your business, you may wish to consider the generous tax breaks available to investors under the venture capital reliefs for new equity investments.  If you follow the link to our EIS flowchart this will help guide you through whether or not your business is likely to qualify. We have further detailed information on both EIS and SEIS, which may be of interest.