Tax Planning

To put it simply, tax planning is ensuring an individual or company is making use of all tax allowances available to them to be as tax efficient as possible.   

Some basic ways of increasing tax efficiency in your planning include using your personal income, dividend, and capital gains tax allowances, and maximising your annual pension contributions.  

There are also more complex means of efficiency which may be included in a tax plan, like VCT, EIS, CDIS. These are more involved and require professional advice. 

A good financial planner will be able to look at your situation (what allowances you are already using, and what opportunities for additional allowances there are) in order to reduce your total tax burden.  

To legally reduce the amount of tax you pay by making use of tax allowances.  

It’s simple, really – the less tax you pay, the more money in your pocket which you can spend, save to create wealth for your family, or add to your pension and retirement plans.  

Tax planning makes you as tax efficient as possible for you and your family’s wealth position.  

First, you could do a self-audit. To do this, you will need to list out the allowances on offer (such as income tax, capital gains tax, dividend tax, annual allowances, and pension contributions) and asses which you already use. Most people don’t use any allowances, so most people can quickly see where they can use more.  

This self-audit is a great start to your tax planning journey as it will help you get a better understanding of where you are at currently, and where you want to go.  

For a full, efficient, and sustainable tax plan, however, we will always recommend seeking professional financial advice. A good financial planner will likewise assess the basics but is then able to take it one step further by getting into more complex planning opportunities. It is likely that your adviser will suggest opportunities you haven’t considered in your self-audit or didn’t know existed.  

If you can, it is always best to seek that professional support. 

The main advantage of tax planning is that (if successful) more of your money can go into your personal pot. This will give you a higher living standard because you have more disposable income, or it will allow you to save to generate wealth for whatever it is that you wish to work towards, like retirement planning or your children’s school fees.  

There is also an element of being able to pass money down to the next generation because less of your income is going to tax. For instance, you can get your children and grandchildren set up so they can purchase their first property or start their pension. 

The only disadvantage, really, is: if you want this to be done well, you need to speak to a good financial planner. There will, therefore, be some fees involved. In most cases, however, a good adviser will pay for themselves over and over in the amount of tax they save you with a decent plan.  

You should be wary of anything too complicated or engineered as these schemes often unravel and, invariably, don’t work – keep the planning simple.