Choosing an Advisor
There are a number of firms that market capital allowances services, ranging from general practice accountants, surveyors and solicitors through to specialist firms, but like all professional advisers they vary in suitability.
Of course, we and our clients believe we are the best and that you should appoint us. However, this is because we can meet all the key criteria in choosing a capital allowances adviser, namely:-
- Tax and surveying professional qualifications: Tax (FCA/ACA, CTA, ATT or ACCA) and surveying (FRICS/MRICS). Many advisers do not have this combination of expertise or may sub-contract work outside their firms;
- Genuine specialist expertise: In capital allowances and related property tax reliefs. For example, have they published books and articles? We often find that other advisers (including major accountancy firms and a number who regard themselves as capital allowances experts) "do not know what they do not know", or miss claims through a mixture of apathy and a lack of relevant skills. We are routinely told that existing advisers say they have capital allowances claims "fully covered" so we would be wasting our time, but we still secure substantial tax savings to our clients' surprise and delight. We have even seen taxpayers appoint larger firms with professed capital allowances expertise, but later terminate that relationship and appoint us instead because it became clear the other firm lacked genuine knowledge;
- Relevant experience to your industry: Are they familiar with the practical issues facing you? Can they provide client recommendations?
- Expert and efficient staff: The sales team may be impressive, but have you met the people that will actually perform the work? Many firms rely on the work being carried out by unqualified and inexperienced staff who are being trained at their clients' expense. In contrast, our directors take a hands-on approach and actually produce the work. This means that we are streamlined and efficient, our work is "right first time" and we deliver optimum results;
- Adequate resources: Very small firms may easily become overstretched and struggle to deal with portfolios of properties or challenging deadlines. Although every client is important and we are adept at dealing with smaller one-off investments, we have the resources to handle large property portfolios and have advised on many high profile transactions with values running into hundreds of millions of pounds;
- A professional and ethical approach: A casual or cavalier approach can easily damage your relationship with HM Revenue and lead to interest and penalties;
- A supportive attitude seeking to work with your accountant and other advisers: Rather than against them (some firms offer wider taxation and other advisory services and may be looking to undermine and replace existing advisers);
- Honest marketing: Some new and aggressively marketed firms are known to make untrue or highly misleading sales claims, such as being "approved" by HM Revenue & Customs, or needing and using expensive HMRC "licences", "matrices" or "methodologies" to undertake capital allowances consultancy. This is simply not true!
- Value for money fees: Here there are several important issues:-
- It is usually a false economy to appoint an adviser solely on price, ignoring quality. This is because the fee savings will be dwarfed by lost tax savings and delays resulting from using an adviser that under resources the project, or is not fully competent;
- Some large firms charge high fees because of their heavy overheads and on the strength of their well-known brands, but in practice cannot outperform smaller, more focused and flexible boutique advisers;
- At the other end of the market, some aggressively marketed smaller firms are known to charge fees that absorb the whole or more of the first year's tax saving. For example, a small corporate property investor's first year tax saving will be 4% of the expenditure qualifying for capital allowances, yet for this work some advisers routinely charge fees of between 5% and 10% of the qualifying expenditure.