Steve Watts
Partner
Planning and Design Audits
By working alongside fellow construction professionals within the organisation, BDO can advise at project feasibility stage on the best design options to ensure that capital allowances are maximised without detriment to a project's commercial viability. This approach has, in some cases, enhanced the level of capital allowances available for property developments by 5% to 15%.
Property Portfolio and Historical Claim Audit
These audits involve a complete examination of property portfolios to ensure that all available allowances and reliefs are claimed and safeguarded. Any shortfalls in potential claims that have, for example, been missed or moved into trusts and funds without an election are examined on a case-by-case basis to ensure that entire portfolios are as tax-efficient as possible. With the fixtures time-limit it is essential that companies review all historic capital expenditure on fixtures in order to maximise their tax relief and also enable a potential future purchaser to claim (which can serve as a valuable asset to a potential purchaser).
Sample Analysis
For certain large portfolios, new fit-out and refurbishment programmes, the nature of the investments can mean that it is most efficient to prepare a statistically valid sample of the level of allowances available. This can then be applied to the total capital expenditure on a percentage basis. These approaches can require up front agreement of the sample size and qualifying percentage with HMRC, an approach we are very familiar and successful with.
Pro-formas
We can prepare pro-forma documentation for our clients with ongoing refurbishment, maintenance and building programmes whose claims are prepared in-house. We are experienced with developing bespoke pro-formas and reports for our clients. Staff training and updates to pro-formas in line with current legislation and case law are also provided.