Case Study: The Business Owner

Mr & Mrs owner aged 66 and 64. Own and run large retail business with their children and their children’s partners.

Challenges:

• Clients did not  fully understand the risks to their business ie future ownership, protection of loans and key people
• Clients were very focussed on day to day running of the business and struggled to find the time and energy to sit down and carefully consider issues and options
• Exit strategy: clients had rough idea of timescale but not of strategy
• Wealth extraction; how to get money out of the business tax efficiently in the years before retirement & exit

What we did:

• Gained understanding of clients aims and motivators and explained risks to them. Put in place correctly structured protection plans to ensure that the future ownership of the business in the event of death/long illness matched their wishes
• Explained the importance of adequate planning and the benefits of spending the time getting the planning right and that time needed to be found
• Put forward a range of examples/possible routes to allow an ordered exit from the business with sufficient income & capital. All examples were mindful of capital gains tax (CGT) and the “favourite”  saved over £65,000 of CGT
• Company pension contributions used to reduce cash in business, utilising tax relief and enhancing clients own retirement benefits. Company tax bill reduced by over £4,000 pa

Results:

• Secured future ownership of business whatever events unfolded with health
• Clients found time to sit down and saw direct benefits careful and effective planning
• Plans in place to exit the business with ordered timescale and passing on to the children in a tax efficient manner. Avoiding Capital Gains Tax (a saving of around £65,000)
• Retirement plans were significantly enhanced by extracting cash from the business giving the clients the comfort and peace of mind to realise that when added to other assets and ongoing income from the business the business did not need to be sold. This meant that clients were able to access around £100,000 in tax free cash and a joint income of £19,000 pa