I suppose I should not be surprised. We are in September! This has been a funny year. I feel as if I am still waiting for summer to begin, and then, just like that, it’s gone. Still, the back end of the year has charms of its own, and shortly we will start to see the Xmas stuff appearing in the shops … Ba Humbug! Does not seem long since the year started. But I suppose it has been a busy year for us. Nothing unusual there!

But the barbeque is feeling a bit neglected. That’s the second year it has sat outside and not been used. Thankfully, the raclette did get some use. We even bought a second one to accommodate the number of people sitting around our dining room table. It has got to be one of the most sociable meals we have. All sitting around the table with a selection of meat, fish and cheese, each one cooking their own dinner. Shame they did not all do their own washing up as well. However, we were able to introduce them to the delights of coking raw prawns on the raclette and dipping them into a hot Camembert dip. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.

With the autumn approaching, Helen and I will be getting back to making soups, of various types. We each make the ones we like and then freeze them for lunches.

So, does my life revolve around food? Not really, but it’s nice to have something homemade for lunch.

Is lunch then the high point of the day? It makes it sound like our days are pretty mundane. I think most people’s working days are a bit like that. I was once told that the life of an airline pilot was hours of boredom punctuated with short periods of absolute terror, as the plane comes in to land. Our days are a bit like that. We are never short of work but much of it just needs to get done, and at various points in the day, the are periods of excitement or panic.

I have often said that if everything is going smoothly, we just have not found out yet what has gone wrong. I think most businesses are a bit like that. It is all part of the joys of being in business.

One of the original attractions to me of doing tax work was that I could see it was constantly changing and evolving. Occasionally, I could wish that they would stop tinkering with the tax legislation for a while, but that’s never going to happen.

If they don’t change the actual tax law, they change the rates, and that changes our advice to our clients. Do you incorporate or not? Perhaps you should change from a sole trader to a partnership. It keeps the little grey cells active.

Mind you, there are times when you work out the best tax strategy for someone, but the advice is totally unsuitable. I have found, for example, that there are some people who should never be persuaded to operate through a company, no matter what!

You always need to consider that there are real people receiving our advice, with all the strengths and weaknesses and liable to fall out from time to time. When advising a couple, you always have to consider what if they split up. It happens!

We are occasionally asked to comment on shared issues. Over the years I have come across many company owners looking for capital who approach it from the viewpoint of bringing in new shareholders. Now, there are situations when this can be relevant, but you should never bring in new shareholders lightly. Once they have been issued with shares and they have paid in the funds, they may then leave, and they still own a part of your company. They may even go and work for a competitor. There are safeguards that you can build in and one that is frequently overlooked is to have a shareholders’ agreement to cover these sorts of situations.  Issuing shares should never be done lightly.

So, mix in the ever-changing tax landscape, human frailties and the changing nature of personal relationships, and you start to wonder how we ever manage to advise anyone about the best strategies going forward.

So, what does your day look like? What gets you out of bed every morning, keeps you awake at night, and adds colour to your days?

 

Alan E Long

The Long Partnership

07770 738770