Tax Issues in M&A

This course will explain to delegates:

• The key tax issues affecting purchasers, including capital allowances, stamp taxes and tax relief for financing costs
• The key tax issues affecting vendors, including
  • Business Asset Disposal Relief, with particular emphasis on the changes in FA 2019 and FA 2020
  • The merger tax treatment of various forms of consideration, such as loan notes or earn-outs
• The key areas where anti-avoidance rules can impact on the merger tax treatment
  • in particular, where an acquired company has brought forward losses
• The importance of obtaining HMRC clearances
• Other compliance points (e.g. warranties and indemnities)
• (In overview rather than detail) the M&A tax issues affecting employee shares and options.

Our trainer is a Chartered Accountant who qualified with PwC in 1988, spending his last 18 months there in the Corporate Tax department. In 1989 he joined a leading financial training company as a tax tutor. Since 1992, he has been self-employed as a Professional Tutor and Training Consultant, specialising in tax update courses for accountants, lawyers and investment managers.

Our trainer writes for publications such as Taxation and Tax Insider.

There are a huge number of tax issues to consider, across a range of taxes, when dealing with mergers and acquisitions companies' purchases and disposals. This course will look at M&A transactions from both the purchaser’s and vendor’s perspectives and consider both individual and corporate mergers and acquisitions owners.

Emphasis will be given to the unexpected tax charges that can catch the unwary, along with the reliefs available when deals are planned and structured tax-efficiently. Key compliance areas, such as warranties and obtaining HMRC ‘clearance’, will also be discussed.

To aid delegates’ understanding, the course material will include numerous numerical examples.