Chartered Accountants
Have You Considered How To Prepare Your Business for Sale?
In addition to taking steps to ensure you qualify for available tax reliefs, and deal with all taxes correctly on a business sale, it is also important that you ensure other aspects of the sale run smoothly. Issues arising at the due diligence stage of a sale could result in the sale being delayed, or falling through, and addressing certain issues in advance can help prevent this happening.
The following are among the most significant factors to consider:
- Do you have tidy and up-to-date financial records, including management accounts?
- Are you up to date with HMRC obligations, including returns and payments?
- Have you complied with applicable regulations, including those specific to your industry?
- Can you maximise profitability to secure the highest sales value possible, for example by ensuring costs are being monitored and having appropriate credit controls in place to avoid bad debts?
- Have you ensured there are no assets in the company that a purchaser might not want to buy or that would put them off buying your business?
- Do you have clean title to the assets in the business?
Taking these steps to ensure the due diligence process goes smoothly can help ensure the purchaser goes ahead with the deal. The purchaser will likely require warranties/indemnities from the seller in relation to the business’ past, including past tax compliance, so ensuring that your business has correctly dealt with its regulatory and tax obligations can also avoid unexpected costs further down the line.
What is our role?
Our Taxperts, together with our Corporate Finance Team, will work with you to ensure that all steps are taken to secure a sale, then guide you through the sales process to ensure a sale goes ahead.
If you are thinking of selling your business and would like to discuss your circumstances with sector leading experts, then please contact our Transaction Tax team today.
You can read our advice on ‘All the tax implications of selling your business’ here.
