Contact Your Accountant

Business Owners hardly ever take professional advice before placing their business on the market.

I often ask the question to prospective clients “What does your accountant advise over the sale of your business?” and they look at me blankly. They hadn’t even considered telling their accountant about their proposed sale, because of course it would cost them money to telephone them.

Many of them I am sure complete the transaction, and then find out that they actually have tax to pay on the sale of their business. Now I am sure that Alistair Darling would be very happy about that situation, after all he needs to increase his tax revenues! But for the business seller it is too late, they suddenly find that the net proceeds from their sale isn’t as high as they thought it would be.

If I could give you one bit of advice before placing your business on the market it would be, before you contact a business transfer agent you should be contacting your accountant and consider the amount of Tax payable your in their calculations.

It may change your plans.

This entry was posted on 24/04/2009 at 10:16 am and is filed under Selling Your Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.