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Hoxton Tax: A Fresh Chapter
Hoxton Blog • Hoxton Tax: A Fresh Chapter
There are some projects you get particularly excited about being part of, and for me, the relaunch of Hoxton Tax is certainly one of them.
Over the past few months, a huge amount has been happening behind the scenes. We have been growing our team, developing our services and, most importantly, thinking carefully about the type of tax practice we want to build and the experience we want our clients to have.
Now feels like the right time to properly introduce ourselves.
I joined Hoxton Wealth as Global Head of Tax with a fairly simple ambition: to build a modern, approachable tax practice that can support HNWI and/or internationally mobile individuals and families through the increasingly complicated tax issues that come with living, working, investing and retiring across borders.
Having spent much of my career advising private clients, one thing I have learned is that tax very rarely sits neatly in isolation. Life doesn't tend to happen in convenient tax sized boxes.
You move country. You buy or sell a property. You start drawing a pension. You return to the UK after years overseas. Your children move abroad. Your investment portfolio grows. You begin thinking about retirement or, eventually, what you want to leave to the next generation.
Each decision might look relatively straightforward on its own, but very often there is a tax consequence sitting somewhere in the background.
That is exactly where we want Hoxton Tax to fit.
Tax can have a reputation for being technical, complicated and, frankly, sometimes a little intimidating. There are certainly occasions when it is all three. But I have always believed that being a good tax adviser isn't simply about knowing the legislation. It is about being able to explain what it actually means for the person sitting in front of you.
Our clients shouldn't leave a conversation knowing that their adviser understands their tax position. They should understand it too. And that philosophy is very much at the heart of the new Hoxton Tax.
Sometimes our involvement will be relatively straightforward. A client may need us to prepare their annual UK Self Assessment tax return, report their investments or rental income and make sure everything is filed correctly.
Other times, the conversation starts because something is about to change.
Perhaps somebody is considering returning to the UK and wants to understand when they will become UK resident. They might need advice on the Statutory Residence Test, Split Year Treatment or the UK's Foreign Income and Gains regime. In those circumstances, having the conversation before moving can be considerably more valuable than trying to unravel the position afterwards.
The same is true when somebody is leaving the UK. How many days can they spend back in the country? How much can they work here? What connections do they retain? What happens to their UK investments, property or pension income once they become resident somewhere else?
These are questions we deal with regularly, and they illustrate something that I think is particularly important about tax advice: timing matters.
Understanding Tax Consequences
Understanding a tax consequence before something happens gives you choices. Discovering it afterwards can leave considerably fewer.
Pensions are a good example. They form an increasingly important part of our work, particularly because so many of our clients have lived and worked in more than one country during their careers.
A UK pension being drawn by somebody living overseas can involve much more than simply looking at the UK tax rate. Where the individual lives, where they previously worked, the type of pension involved and the terms of the relevant double taxation agreement can all matter.
For somebody approaching retirement or considering a significant pension withdrawal, understanding those rules before taking the money can make an enormous difference. Sometimes our role is to identify whether treaty relief is available. Sometimes it is to help a client understand the UK tax consequences of the options they are already considering. Often, it is simply making sure tax forms part of the wider retirement conversation.
Inheritance & Estate Planning
And that naturally leads into another increasingly important area of our work: inheritance and estate planning.
The UK's Inheritance Tax landscape has changed significantly, particularly for internationally mobile individuals. Long-term UK residence is now increasingly important when determining the extent to which somebody may remain within the UK Inheritance Tax regime, while the forthcoming changes to the treatment of pensions from April 2027 mean many families will need to revisit assumptions about how their wealth will eventually pass to the next generation.
For an international family, this can become complicated surprisingly quickly. A husband and wife might have completely different UK residence histories. Their assets could be spread across several countries. Their children might live somewhere else entirely.
That doesn't necessarily mean complicated planning is required.
In fact, I think good tax planning should start with the opposite approach.
First, understand the exposure. Then understand what somebody actually wants to achieve and what assets and income they need to enjoy their own lifetime. Only then should we start talking about whether planning is appropriate.
Tax planning should support somebody's life and objectives, not dictate them. This wider approach is also one of the reasons I am so excited about what we are building at Hoxton.
Hoxton Tax doesn't have to operate in its own little box. We can work alongside colleagues across Hoxton Wealth and Hoxton Law where a client's circumstances require financial planning, tax and legal advice to come together.
For us, it is about making sure the right people are around the table.
What Chartered Means to Us
We are also incredibly proud that Hoxton Tax is a Chartered Tax Firm, reflecting our commitment to the highest professional and ethical standards.
For clients, this matters. Tax is an unregulated profession in the UK, meaning that not everyone providing tax advice is required to hold a professional qualification or belong to a professional body. Choosing a Chartered Tax Firm provides an additional level of confidence that the people advising you are appropriately qualified and experienced, maintain their technical knowledge through ongoing professional development, and operate within established professional and ethical standards.
For us, Chartered status is therefore much more than a badge. It reflects the standards we expect throughout Hoxton Tax, from the technical quality of our advice to the way we communicate with and look after our clients. As we continue to grow, maintaining those standards will remain fundamental to the practice we are building: professional, approachable and, above all, a tax adviser our clients can trust.
What comes next?
The relaunch of Hoxton Tax is really just the beginning.
We are continuing to grow the team and the services we offer, while remaining focused on the areas where we know we can make a real difference to our clients.
That includes UK tax compliance and Self Assessment, UK residence and internationally mobile individuals, pre-arrival and departure planning, the Foreign Income and Gains regime, pension taxation and double taxation agreements, property and investment taxation, Inheritance Tax and estate planning, and standalone advice when somebody simply needs to understand the tax consequences of a particular decision.
You will also start hearing from us much more regularly.
Our team will be sharing articles about changes in tax, practical issues we are seeing and some of the questions that come up most frequently in conversations with clients.
I have given the team one request when it comes to those articles: please don't write tax textbooks. There are plenty of places to find those.
Instead, we want to talk about tax in the way we talk about it with our clients, practically, clearly and without unnecessary jargon. Something useful and topical that you can read over a coffee and, hopefully, finish knowing something you didn't know five minutes earlier.
Above all, I want Hoxton Tax to feel approachable.
Whether you need somebody to look after your UK tax return every year, you're planning a move back to the UK, considering drawing from your pension, thinking about what happens to your estate or simply have a tax question and aren't quite sure where to start, talk to us.
Because sometimes the best tax planning starts with nothing more complicated than a conversation.
Welcome to the new Hoxton Tax.
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If you would like to speak to one of our advisers, please get in touch today.
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