Overview
Professional Intermediaries
Specialist tax support for accountants, law firms and family offices, under your client relationship.
Specialist tax support for professional intermediaries
We reply the same working day.
6 ways we help.
- 01
Accountants
Specialist tax support for your clients, while you keep the relationship.
- 02
Law Firms
Tax input on transactions, estates and disputes, alongside your legal advice.
- 03
- 04
- 05
- 06
The whole picture, in plain English.
Specialist tax support for accountants, law firms, family offices and other advisers. We work under your client relationship, with a Chartered Tax Adviser, and respond quickly.
Clients rarely need a specialist every day, but when they do, they need one quickly and they need your relationship with them to stay intact. That is the job we do for other professionals. ASWATAX is a boutique, partner-led tax advisory firm, and every piece of advice is led personally by Omar Aswat, a Chartered Tax Adviser, with 15+ years' experience behind it.
How we work with other professionals
We provide specialist tax support under your client relationship. There are three common ways to work together, and you choose.
- Behind the scenes. You manage the client. We analyse the question, develop the strategy and give you the technical answer in a form you can present as your own. This is white-label working.
- Directly with your client, with you kept informed. We take the client through the specialist project, copy you in throughout, and hand them back to you at the end.
- Jointly. We meet the client together, you bring the history, we bring the technical detail, and the advice is delivered as one team.
Whatever model you pick, you stay the trusted adviser. We do not approach your clients about unrelated work, and we agree communication and ownership of the advice in writing before we start.
What we do not do
We do not take over bookkeeping, accounts or routine tax returns, and we are not trying to build a compliance practice. If a recommendation needs compliance work to implement it, that goes back to your practice or we work with you on it. This is why accountants, solicitors and family offices can bring us in without worry. We are a specialist resource, not a rival for the rest of the relationship.
The work we are most often asked for
Advisers tend to call us on a handful of themes.
- Restructuring. Holding companies, group reorganisations, demergers and share exchanges. We have set up 100+ holding companies and restructured £250m+ of businesses, in groups up to £50m. See Business Owners.
- HMRC clearances. Advance clearance applications under the relevant statutory procedures, where we have obtained 100% of clearances across 50+ applications.
- Inheritance tax. Lifetime planning, trusts and estates, and the changes to business relief and pensions. See Private Families.
- Family Investment Companies. We have set up 50+ Family Investment Companies, and we can work with your wealth or legal team on the wider plan. For the full technical picture see familyinvestmentcompany.uk.
- Transactions. The tax side of buying, selling, management buy-outs and sales to an Employee Ownership Trust. See Transaction Tax.
- International. Clients arriving in or leaving the UK, the foreign income and gains regime, and cross-border inheritance tax. See International Tax.
Beyond these we can support your client on HMRC enquiries, property structures and capital gains questions, as well as any planning where the technical analysis is the hard part.
Services in this group
Accountants
Accountancy practices bring us complex restructuring, inheritance tax and transaction questions, plus HMRC enquiries that need specialist support. We help you say yes to more complex work without recruiting a team. Read more on Accountants.
Law Firms
Solicitors often meet tax at the edge of a legal instruction: a will, a trust, a sale agreement, a property transfer. We help with the tax analysis so your documents reflect the outcome the client wants. Read more on Law Firms.
Family Offices
Single and multi-family offices need technical tax support across several jurisdictions, generations and entities. We act as a specialist adviser to the office, working alongside your own team and other advisers. Read more on Family Offices.
Wealth Managers
Wealth managers can add real value by connecting portfolio decisions to tax: inheritance tax, gains, structures and residence. We provide the tax analysis while you keep the investment relationship. Read more on Wealth Managers.
Financial Planners
Planners build long-term plans, and tax assumptions sit inside every one. We help test and refine those assumptions on complex cases, including estates, trusts and cross-border clients. Read more on Financial Planners.
Trust and Fiduciary Service Providers
Trustees and fiduciaries carry real responsibility for tax outcomes. We support them with the technical analysis on settlements, distributions, residence and reporting questions. Read more on Trust and Fiduciary Service Providers.
When to bring in a specialist
The best time to call is before the advice is given or the document is signed, because that is when the most options are open. Typical triggers are a client planning a sale or reorganisation, a family preparing for a change of generation, someone about to move to or from the UK, or an HMRC letter that raises a technical point. If you find yourself researching a rule you rarely use, a short call is usually quicker and safer than a long read.
Why advisers choose ASWATAX
- Fast. We reply the same working day, because your client is waiting on you.
- Personal. You speak to a Chartered Tax Adviser from the first call, not a department.
- Commercially minded. We shape advice around the client's real outcome, not a generic answer.
- Clear. We explain the tax in plain English so you can explain it to the client.
- Proven. 300+ clients advised and 5.0 rated on Google from 31 reviews.
You can also try our free tools with a client: the Inheritance Tax Calculator, the UK Residency Checker and the Business Exit Calculator.
Talk to us
If you have a client with a specialist tax question, or you would like to understand how we could support your practice, book a free first call or get in touch. Tell us the question and the deadline, and we will tell you straight away how we can help.
Tools for your clients.
Share our three calculators with clients, or run them together before a call with us.
Inheritance Tax Calculator
What would your estate pay today?
Estimated inheritance tax bill
£200,000
About 13% of the estate. Your family keeps about £1,300,000.
Want the full picture? The full Inheritance Tax Calculator asks a few more questions and shows the step-by-step working, the assumptions and where planning could help.
Open the full calculatorIllustrative only, using the £325,000 nil-rate band and up to £175,000 residence nil-rate band per person. Not advice.
One adviser. Start to finish.
05 · Guide in progress
The Referral Partner Guide
How we work alongside accountants, law firms and family offices.
Talk it through instead
Our The Referral Partner Guide is being written. In the meantime, a 20-minute call with a Chartered Tax Adviser is free.
Book a free callWe reply the same working day.
From the journal.
Asked often.
Q1What does ASWATAX do for other professional advisers?
We provide specialist tax advice on the matters that sit beyond a general practice: restructuring, HMRC clearances, inheritance tax, Family Investment Companies, transactions and international tax. We work under your client relationship, either directly with your client while keeping you informed, or behind the scenes as your technical resource.
Q2Do you take over the client relationship?
No. The relationship stays with you. We are brought in for a defined piece of specialist work, and when it is done the client returns to you for the day-to-day. We do not approach your clients about other services, and we agree at the start how communication will run so nobody is surprised.
Q3Can you work white-label?
Yes. We can produce advice, reports and computations that you present to your client as part of your own service, with our name kept in the background. Some advisers prefer a joint approach where we are visible. We agree the model project by project, and the client is told clearly who is advising on what.
Q4What kinds of matters do advisers most often bring you?
The most common are group restructures and holding companies, HMRC clearance applications, inheritance tax and Family Investment Company planning, the tax side of buying or selling a business, and cross-border questions such as leaving or arriving in the UK. We also help with HMRC enquiries that need a specialist hand.
Q5How quickly can you respond to an adviser's query?
You get a reply the same working day. For time-sensitive matters, such as a deal with a completion date or an HMRC deadline, we agree a timetable on the first call and work to it. Your first call is with a qualified and experienced adviser, not a call handler.
Q6Do you do compliance work that competes with accountants?
No. We do not take over bookkeeping, accounts or routine returns that your practice already does well. Our focus is advisory and specialist projects. If implementing a recommendation involves compliance work, we hand it back to you or work with you so it stays in your practice.
Q7Who owns the advice we commission?
We agree this in the engagement terms before work starts. In a white-label arrangement the advice is prepared for you to use with your client. In a direct arrangement the client receives our advice and you receive a copy. Either way, the position on reliance is stated clearly in writing.
Q8Is it a conflict of interest if we both advise the same client?
It should not be, provided roles are clear. You advise on the wider picture; we advise on the specialist question. We check for conflicts before we start, keep each matter confidential, and tell you promptly if anything in our advice affects work your practice is doing.
Q9How do you handle client confidentiality?
We treat everything about your client and your relationship as confidential. We keep each client matter separate, share information only with the people you and the client approve, and process personal data in line with UK GDPR. Our privacy policy sets out the details.
Q10Can we use you for a one-off question rather than a project?
Yes. Many advisers start with a single question, such as whether a planned share exchange is likely to be clearable, or how a client's departure from the UK will be taxed. We can give a focused answer, and if it grows into a project we scope it with you at that point.
Q11Do you work with advisers outside England?
Yes. We advise on UK tax for clients and advisers based anywhere in the UK and internationally. We are especially used to supporting overseas advisers whose clients have UK property, UK-resident family members or an intention to move to the UK, and who need a UK tax view quickly.
Q12What do you need from us to get started?
A short outline of the client's situation, the question you want answered, any deadline, and the latest structure chart or accounts if you have them. You do not need a perfect brief. The first call is free and we can shape the question together before anything is formally commissioned.
Q13How are costs agreed with intermediaries?
Scope and billing are agreed in writing before work starts, so you and the client know exactly what is covered. We can invoice you or the client directly, depending on what suits your practice. We do not start chargeable work until that has been agreed.
Q14Will you speak to our client with us in the room?
Yes, if you want to. Joint meetings work well on complex projects, because you bring the history of the relationship and we bring the technical detail. Other advisers prefer that we brief them first and they speak to the client. We are comfortable with either.
Q15Can you help when an HMRC enquiry lands on a client?
Yes. We can deal with HMRC on a client's behalf or support you behind the scenes, depending on who is on record as agent. Enquiries often turn on a technical point about a structure or a relief, which is where specialist support is most useful. We will explain the options and the next steps clearly.
Q16Are you a competitor for our wider planning work?
No. We do not run investment portfolios, offer regulated financial products, or provide ongoing accounting. Our role is tax advice and structuring. That is why advisers across different disciplines can bring us in without worrying that we will compete for the rest of their client's business.
Q17How do I introduce a client to ASWATAX?
The simplest route is to book a call or email us with a brief outline, and we will take it from there. You can introduce the client by name or, if confidentiality matters at the outset, describe the situation anonymously first. We will not contact the client until you tell us to.
Q18Do you offer training or briefings for our team?
We run webinars and can offer private training, online or on site. Topics could include recent changes to inheritance tax, business relief or the foreign income and gains regime. Ask us on the first call what would be most useful for your team and we will see how best to arrange it.
08 · Next step
A short call, a clear plan.
We reply the same working day.
