I read an article a couple of weeks ago about the top 100 taxpayers in the UK.
Last year, the largest tax bill was paid by Sir Chris Hohn, who’s a hedge fund king – his tax bill was £340 million. As well as obviously making a lot of money, his firm pledged £549 million to charity in 2023. So he probably doesn’t actually mind about his tax bill because it’s clear that he’s happy to do good things.
Second and third on the list are the owners of Betfred and the owners of Bet365. So, clearly there are now a lot of poor punters out there. Between them, they paid nearly £540 million in tax across those two businesses.
Some other notable names include Sir James Dyson, obviously brilliant at cleaning up on the profits – he paid £103 million of tax. J.K. Rowling is magic with numbers and paid £47 million. And making a lot of bread, the Warburton family paid £32 million. It almost makes you feel sorry for the people at the bottom list – coming in at number 100 were Roger and Giles Bracewell, who make pet food, but only paid £10.5 million.
The point of this is that these are big numbers. And they are big numbers because they made big profits.
As a business owner, ultimately you want to pay tax because paying tax signifies you’re making profits. But, you want to pay the right amount of tax – the right amount of tax where you have claimed the reliefs that are available to you personally, claimed the reliefs available for your business, and done all you can to reduce your tax bill properly and legally. And, to do that, you sometimes need help from an expert.
For many of our clients, we prepare a full-on tax diagnostic where we leave no stone unturned in looking for tax savings in their business and personal lives. All of these, of course, are 100% legal – they’re just using the reliefs, the allowances, and the Government incentives that are available to you but that many people don’t know about.
And doing this diagnostic often does turn up some things that can save quite a lot of money.
If this is something you’d be interested in doing with us, please let me know and we’ll arrange a time to chat.
If Sir Chris Hohn had been to see us, his £340 million tax bill would’ve only been a mere £330 million!
If you have any questions, please email su*****@*********************co.uk or give us a ring on 0151 380 8084.
Many thanks
Jon