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Accountants & Business Advisers

Farms and Estates

For years, we have been deeply embedded in the rural community, providing specialist advice to farms, estates and rural families.

With farming businesses diversifying in one way or another, we understand that farming is not just about traditional farming practices. New opportunities mean new business and tax considerations, as well as the need for careful planning.

Farms and Estates Advisor

We keep up to date on all of the emerging issues enabling us to advise you much more effectively and address any potential issues before and as they arise.

We believe in open and long lasting relationships and whole heartedly value the progress and development of your business.

Allow James Cowper Kreston to be your business and taxation advisor for years to come.

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Accounts and Taxation

Whatever your business size or structure, accounts and tax are an essential requirement however, at James Cowper Kreston we don’t believe they should just be a commodity to satisfy compliance obligations.  

Preparing accounts, tax calculations and tax returns to meet filing and tax payment obligations is a given but what's much more important is that we understand farming businesses in all their many diversified forms and use this understanding to bring insight and meaningful interpretation to what otherwise might just be numbers.

Buying and Selling Land

Buying and selling land can be a taxing business.

Whether you have been approached by a potential developer, promoter or a neighboring farm has become available, we can provide you with tax advice and so take you through the tax minefield.

Advice we offer can cover:

Inheritance Tax planning

None of our farming clients wish their families to pay Inheritance Tax when they have passed away. Whilst it is true that there are generous reliefs available to farming and estate families, these are by no means automatic and each one has detailed conditions which need to be satisfied.  These critical reliefs for rural families are under increasing scrutiny from HM Revenue and Customs so ever greater care is required, especially as families’ tax and accounting affairs become more diversified and complex.

We ensure that you navigate these complex rules to achieve the best outcome for you and your family.

The Family Business and Succession

Farmers and landowners face very specific challenges in increasing profits and retaining their value for future generations. We can advise the family on the best evolution for your business, whether that is through a direct succession plan or through a more complex succession plan with the emphasis on tax efficiency.

Our advice can cover:

  • The highlighting of assets owned, the desired destination for these assets, timing of succession and how to best go about the implementation.
  • Honest, clear and informative business and tax advice to assist you, the client, make the best decisions for your family farm or estate. 
  • Ensuring a succession plan is tax efficient and well timed, that wills and partnership agreement make sense and allow for the correct tax treatment of assets of the farming or estate business.
  • Working in a sustainable manner so that the farm or estate can continue to thrive for the next generation and beyond.
Outsourcing Solutions including book keeping, payroll and VAT

As a Xero Champion Platinum partner we use Xero as our primary bookkeeping accounting and VAT software. 

Cloud-based accounting provides many benefits to farming businesses including live data processing and up-to-date information - aiding timely, user-friendly collaboration and advice and access, on the go, to real-time access to management data – invaluable for effective business decisions.

We can provide you with a total solution, from book-keeping and VAT returns to year end compliance or a tailored service to suit your requirements. Our experienced Xero professionals can set up your app-stack for you, convert from your existing system and provide training to ensure you and your team get the best out of the software. Find out more about our Outsourcing Services here.

We recognise that Xero is not the solution for everyone and we are happy to support clients on whatever system they use. Whether it be Sage, Farmplan, Sum-It, Landmark or something else. 

Our Indirect Tax specialists are on hand to help guide you through the complexities of VAT for farming and diversified businesses. 

Our experienced and award-winning Payroll Bureau are great in assisting farming and estate clients, whether they have one employee or many or whatever the nature of specific payroll querie.