Tax due diligence when you sell an MSP
It's tempting to lump tax in with finance and assume your accountant already has it covered. In a sale process, that assumption can cost you. Tax due diligence isn't about whether your annual return was filed on time. It's a set of deal specific questions that only come up because a sale is happening at all.
What a buyer's tax due diligence covers
- Your full compliance history across every tax head, not just corporation tax.
- Whether there have been any HMRC enquiries, and how they were resolved.
- How R&D claims, if you've made any, are evidenced.
- The tax implications of the deal structure itself, share sale against asset sale.
- Whether past restructuring or share issues carry tax consequences that follow the business into new ownership.
Where this catches sellers out
Tax questions tend to arrive from two directions at once, the buyer's own tax specialist and your accountant, often asking the same thing in slightly different language. Without one clear, agreed record of your tax position, you end up answering it twice, which gets repetitive fast and slows everyone down. The work itself is smaller than it sounds. The single most useful question to put to your accountant early is: if we were selling in the next year, what would a buyer's tax adviser want to see?
How MSP Sale Readiness helps
We help you put that question to your accountant early and specifically, then check the answer is documented in one place rather than reconstructed twice when the buyer's tax adviser and your own adviser both come asking. Your accountant keeps doing their own specialist work. We make sure they know exactly what shape a due diligence process needs it in, well before a deal is live.
Ready to get your tax due diligence in shape?
Want a quick sense of where you stand on tax? The free readiness assessment covers tax alongside the other eight areas in about three minutes.