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Notes on tax, profit, and a more valuable agency.
Short, plain-English reads for founder-led UK agencies. No jargon walls, no filler.
If your agency has employees, do not miss the £10,500 National Insurance relief
Employment Allowance lets eligible employers cut their employer's National Insurance bill by up to £10,500 a tax year. There is one trap that stops most one-person agencies claiming it.
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Starting a side hustle while employed: sole trader or limited company?
If you already earn well from a job, a side hustle's profit lands on top of your salary as a sole trader. Put it through a limited company and the starting point is very different.
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Your company made a capital loss. Here is what you can do with it
A company capital loss goes against capital gains in the same accounting year, and anything left over carries forward indefinitely. What it will never do is reduce your trading profits.
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Made a loss? You can carry it back and reclaim the corporation tax you already paid
Made a loss this year? A trading loss can be carried back against the previous 12 months of profit, so corporation tax you have already paid can come back to you as cash.
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Sold a business car? Your tax bill depends on how you claimed the running costs
Sell a car you have used in the business and the tax position turns entirely on whether you claimed Capital Allowances or Mileage Allowance. One method can add tax on the sale. The other never does.
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Rented out your home before selling? You may still owe no capital gains tax
You do not need to pay any capital gains tax on the sale of your house, if it has been your main home the whole time you owned it. Rent it out first, and the rules change, unless you know the exemption that can bring the whole gain back into relief.
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Laptop tax relief: repairs, new MacBooks, and the Annual Investment Allowance
Your laptop can cut your tax bill, but repairs and a brand-new machine are treated differently. Here is how each one works for an agency owner, and why the Annual Investment Allowance usually gives you the full relief upfront.
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How to reduce your agency's corporation tax (legitimately)
Legitimate ways a UK marketing agency can bring its corporation tax bill down, what actually reduces taxable profit, and why dividends do not.
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VAT when your agency has overseas clients
Do you put VAT on an invoice to a client in the US or the EU? For most agency services the answer turns on where your client belongs, not where you are.
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You live abroad but own a UK agency. Where does the tax land?
You can live overseas and still own a UK marketing agency, but the company's tax and your personal tax are two separate questions. Here is how they split, in plain terms.
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The 60% tax trap, and why agency owners keep hitting it
Between £100,000 and £125,140 of income, an odd quirk of the UK system taxes every extra pound at an effective 60 percent. Here is why it happens, and why agency founders hit it so often.
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How to choose a tax adviser for your marketing agency
Searching for a tax adviser for your UK marketing agency? Here is how to judge one on specialism, credentials, and planning, and what genuinely good looks like.
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Selling stocks and shares as an agency owner: the tax, in plain English
Sell shares at a profit and the taxman wants a slice. Here is what capital gains tax, dividend tax, and Business Asset Disposal Relief actually mean for an agency owner, plus the one shelter most people underuse.
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Three tax moves for agency owners in 2026/27
Three straightforward, legitimate moves for UK agency owners this tax year: a salary set to your allowance, tax-free company interest, and your ISA allowance.
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AI replaced his bookkeeper. It cost £20k in extra tax.
One agency owner automated his bookkeeping with AI. It treated expenses as income and left his accounts unbalanced, pushing his tax bill around £20k too high.
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Set up in Dubai and pay no tax? Optimise your UK position first
Before you move your agency to Dubai for a zero-tax life, get your UK position efficient first, and understand the UK rules that can follow you abroad.
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If capital gains tax rises, what should agency owners do?
There is speculation that capital gains tax could be aligned with income tax rates. Nothing is confirmed, but if you plan to sell assets soon, it is worth planning now.
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Why you should not use Claude for your taxes
AI is brilliant at sounding certain. Tax is the one place where confident and wrong is the most expensive combination there is.
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What your agency can actually claim as an expense: a 2026 checklist
Most agencies under-claim, not over-claim. As work has gone remote and software-heavy, the list of legitimate business expenses has quietly grown.
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You moved abroad. Do you still owe UK tax?
Booking a one-way flight does not end your tax relationship with the UK. Where you pay is decided by residence rules, not your postcode.
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How much should an agency founder actually pay themselves?
Most founders treat their pay as a personal withdrawal rather than a business decision. Here is a cleaner way to think about salary, dividends, and what to leave in.
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Plan your tax around the exit, not just the year-end
If the plan is to sell in five to ten years, the decisions you make now shape both your tax bill and your valuation. Year-end tidy-ups miss most of that.
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VAT for agencies: where the money quietly leaks
VAT rarely gets founders excited, but the wrong scheme or a missed recharge quietly costs agencies real money every quarter.
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Why clean books quietly raise your agency's valuation
Buyers pay more for businesses they can understand. The work that makes your numbers legible is the same work that makes them defensible.
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