Tax incentive

Get a great new car like a Tesla Model S and save tax too!

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Investing in equipment 0

I have been salivating over the new Tesla Model S that has recently been introduced in the UK. It carries a fairly hefty price tag but given its space-age interior, high performance and ‘cheap as chips’ running costs (its 100% electric) its hard to ignore.

The good news for company owners is that there are some nice tax incentives that can sweeten a deal in getting your mits on one of these cars.

Ordinarily it rarely stacks up from a financial perspective to acquire a car through the company as the driver gets stung for high benefit in kind income tax charges and the company gets sloooooow tax relief in the company. 9 times out of 10 it makes more sense to acquire the company personally and take advantage of the Approved Mileage rates to claw back some of the running costs on business mileage. But there are a handful of exceptions – and this is one of them.

The Government wants to encourage people to invest in low Co2 emission and electric cars so they offer tax incentives. A Tesla Model S ticks all the boxes (for now…)

  1. As it is electric, you can get a 100% write-off against taxable profits in the company. This is huge. A £70k P85 Tesla Model S bought through the company (either outright or via HP) would save corporation tax of c£14k!
  2. There is 0% benefit in kind charge – watch out, this is scheduled to run out on 5 April 2015
  3. No road tax
  4. No London Congestion Charge

There have been tax incentives like this around for a while for low emission cars but, to be frank, these cars have been fairly uninspiring.

The Tesla Model S is a bit of a game-changer in this respect and hopefully opens the doors for more innovative performance cars that both help the environment whilst being functional and fun too (oh and tax friendly!).

Taxation of Innovation – How UK tax incentives support the innovation lifecycle

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Intellectual Property Planning 0

Here are the slides that I used to present to the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) at a seminar in Liverpool last week. The key relevant theme was the Patent Box (given the audience) but my objective was to emphasise how and where the Patent Box fits into the wider series of Government tax incentives aimed at innovative IP-rich UK companies.

From start-up we have the Seed EIS followed by EIS for tax efficient funding. Both schemes are designed to support companies undertaking R&D work and creating their own IP.

R&D tax credits then step into support companies during the development phase. The R&D tax credit relief continues to be a fantastic source of support for UK companies but up until 1 April 2013 there was a cliff-edge at the exploitation stage as there were no tax incentives there to support IP rich companies.

This where the Patent Box steps in to support companies with qualifying patents to complete the innovation business lifecycle.

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When tax planning can be good!

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Tomorrow's Business 0

Life is a precious gift. Don't waste it being unhappy, dissatisfied, or anything else you can be

Tax planning is getting a real battering at the moment – in some cases, for all the right reasons – but there are many instances where effective tax planning is essential for fast growth businesses and, in fact, positively encouraged by the government.

Aside from printing money to erode away much of our UK budget deficit (…), the Government appreciates that by encouraging entrepreneurs to build hi-tech companies here in the UK then we might have a fighting chance of seeing a brighter economic picture in the short-medium term.

To help us achieve this, the Government introduced 5 key statutory tax incentives that they absolutely and positively want entrepreneurs to claim:

  1. Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) / Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS)
  2. Enterprise Management Incentive Scheme (EMI)
  3. R&D tax credits
  4. Patent Box
  5. Entrepreneur’s Relief 

As a chartered accountant specialising in advising fast growth companies in these areas – you can find plenty more about these tax incentives on this site or by getting in touch – in my view:

If all UK entrepreneurial businesses took advantage of these five statutory tax incentives (where applicable) and used the funds saved to reinvest in new jobs, new marketing channels and new business ventures; then surely we could reinvigorate our economy with fresh, innovative ip rich companies that can compete on a global scale

Enough of the ‘tax bashing’ – let’s make sure that our entrepreneurs have all of the tools necessary at their disposal if they are to get us back on top – an effective and supportive tax regime for entrepreneurs is one of them (and the good news in the UK is that – for now – we have one…).

Image attribution: @Doug88888 via Compfight

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