Tax solicitors

Get expert guidance on all aspects of tax law

Tax affects all commercial businesses and transactions. It's often one of the largest individual costs of a transaction but isn't always managed to the same extent or degree as a lot of the other costs.

This is partly due to the complexity of the constantly evolving UK tax system. Technical and complex legislation, combined with time constraints and individual circumstances, can often mean that a proper consideration and review of the tax consequences is left until late on, or even after a transaction has completed, when the options to mitigate any adverse tax impacts may be limited.

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The firm's service is excellent. They're responsive and extremely efficient.
Chambers and Partners 2023

How our tax solicitors can help you

Our expert tax solicitors provide practical and commercial tax advisory and support services for individuals and businesses including advice in relation to:

Corporate transactions (mergers, acquisitions and reorganisations)
Employee share schemes and incentives;
Investments and accessing investment reliefs (EIS and VCT)
Property transactions (ranging from residential and commercial property investments to lease renewals and surrenders, joint ventures and development projects) including SDLT and VAT issues
Joint ventures and public/private sector partnerships
Shareholder disputes and tax-related professional negligence claims; and
Employment status issues

Particular areas of specialism and expertise of our tax advisory team include:

Advising on the design and implementation of employee share incentives;
Advising on tax-efficient corporate restructurings including demergers and capital reductions;
Providing legal transitional tax support to other professional advisers;
Working with public sector bodies to provide tax-efficient models for joint ventures and collaborative operations.

Failing to keep pace with changes to the tax code is a key business risk that can have material financial consequences, whether through interest charges and penalties from compliance failures or by missing out on claiming tax reliefs and exemptions. Timely tax advice can generate real cost savings and provide measurable added value.

Considering the tax position and seeking advice at the outset, before the structure or terms of the transaction are agreed, greatly enhances the opportunity to save costs and manage any risks. Our tax solicitors have helped to restructure numerous transactions for clients that have delivered millions of pounds worth of tax savings and reliefs.

We understand, however, that you need commercial as well as technical advice. We cut through the complex technical language to get to the heart of the issue, discuss the relevant issues and options in plain terms and provide clear practical advice. We also help to implement transactions to ensure that the contractual documentation is drafted so as to achieve the desired effect. What we don't do is advocate the use of tax avoidance structures (that promise big savings only to result in lengthy disputes with HMRC and reputational damage down the line) or forget that tax is just one aspect of a bigger picture.

As well as offering standalone tax support and advice, we also work closely with other practice areas and advisors to provide a coordinated approach. For example, on the sale by an individual of shares in a trading company or group, it is important to also consider the inheritance tax implications and in this respect, we work closely with our Wills, Trusts and Estates team who can provide advice on inheritance tax and succession planning arrangements that will help reduce or eliminate future inheritance tax exposures.

We have also seen a rise in the use of family investment companies (FICs) as an alternative to discretionary trusts as a means of passing wealth to children whilst still retaining control over the relevant cash and assets.