A taxpayer who carries on a business is entitled to a deduction for a gift made to a former or current client if the gift has been made for the purpose of producing future assessable income i.e. gaining client referrals, generating additional sales, etc. Real estate agents for example normally give a bottle of champagne…
For businesses operating on an accruals basis, income that is subject to a client dispute may be deferred until the dispute is settled. The disputed income should be recorded in the financials as a liability, and only recorded as income when the dispute is finalized.
The tax strategies database is the intellectual knowledge and know-how that is the horsepower behind the whole tax planning process. A substandard or limited tax strategies database will not get the job done for the client and will inevitably produce poor performance. Too many accountants are attempting to provide tax planning services with an arsenal…
Just as financial planners need to know their clients when preparing a financial plan, so too do accountants need to know their clients when preparing a tax plan. This involves gathering the client information and data so the complete picture about the client’s affairs can be analysed. Accountants normally know their client’s income and expenses…
There is no generally accepted definition of what renders a country or jurisdiction a tax haven. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a tax haven as ‘a place where people pay less tax than they would pay if they lived in their own country’. The term most commonly refers to those countries or jurisdictions that have a…
Both common law partnerships and written partnership agreements allow the partners of a partnership to vary the amount a partner draws as a ‘partner salary’. To be effective for tax purposes in an income year, the agreement must be entered into before the end of that income year. The partner’s salary should be based on…
Even if accountants are well trained and utilising tax planning software it will still take 2-3 hours (on average) to complete the six stage tax planning process for a client. Skipping any of the six stages, or not spending adequate time on a stage, will result in a substandard result for the client. The tax…
Capital city: Nicosia Currency: Euro (EUR) Population: 1,100,000 Language: Greek & Turkish GDP …
A reversionary pension is a pension that is paid to a member and on the death of the member continues to be paid to an eligible dependent of the deceased i.e. their spouse or child under the age of 18. The advantages of an automatic reversionary pension are: Removes the need for trustees to cash…
As discussed previously, 90% of practices don’t actually provide tax planning services to their clients for a fee. That is not debatable and is a fact supported by the data. What is interesting though is that most of those practice principals will tell you they do provide tax planning services to their clients, but just…
"You’d be stupid not to try to cut your tax bill and those that don’t are stupid in business"
- Bono: U2