Sports & Leisure

We have been providing statutory audit services to organisations in the sports industry from more than 20 years. Our practitioners have significant experience of working with clients across the whole sporting ecosystem from governing bodies to clubs and sports related businesses.

Aside from conforming to legal requirements, an audit is also a great opportunity to add value to your organisation. An external audit provides an opportunity to:

• Identify weakness in internal controls and implement improvements.
• Improve the quality of management information.
• Provide confidence to shareholders and financers.
• Provide credibility to the financial statements.

You will benefit from our audit approach, which is delivered through our specifically tailored audit software, Inflo. We are focused on adopting innovative technology to constantly improve the quality of audit service delivery and share meaningful information beyond a set of financial statements.

All businesses need to maintain up-to-date financial information and records to meet statutory requirements and allow management to make informed decisions and clients in the sports industry are no different. This is particularly with smaller organisations or scale up business such as sports technology organisations.

Hiring and setting up an internal finance team can be a huge drain on resources at a time when investment should be focused on developing your business.

Using haysmacintyre’s business support team, provides business owners with a cost and time effective solution. Our services are tailored and can grow with you without the need for significant investment in people and the most recent accounting software. Having a flexible solution to your growing finance needs is something that we have found our clients value most about our service as they scale – and appointing an already established finance team using the best software solutions, means you can immediately take advantage of our forecasting services, allowing you to make better business decisions.

UK tax laws are numerous, complicated, and constantly changing, which makes managing your tax affairs complex and demanding.

Our Tax Compliance service includes:

• Accurate preparation of the tax computations and returns with minimal disruption.
• Time dedicated for innovative thinking, which focuses on ‘how your tax efficiency can be improved’, now and for the future – with us acting as your in-house business tax team.
• Considering group matters to enhance worldwide tax efficiency where appropriate.
• Undertaking R&D claim work at the same time as preparing the remainder of the tax computations and returns.
• The timely preparation of tax journals, deferred tax and accounting disclosure tax notes for the accounts.
• Our commitment to finalise the tax return and computation within 30 days of the board signing the financial statements.

We use the tax compliance process to identify tax planning opportunities and future issues both in the UK and internationally. Our corporation tax team provide a full range of tax advisory services to the sector.

VAT is a complex tax particularly in the sports industry. There are specific complexities in the industry around partial exemption requirements, major events, cross border transactions and even agents’ fees.

The haysmacintyre VAT team has a track record of communicating complex requirements in a results-oriented and practical way, without losing sight of the inevitable complexities and areas of uncertainty. We can aid with VAT reviews, highlighting VAT efficiencies, partial exemption calculations, preparation for inspections and inspection visits.

There are several specific challenges within sport related to employment taxes. We often see clients requiring advice on benefits in kind, off payroll working arrangements, foreign entertainers’ taxation and image rights amongst many other issues.

We have a dedicated employment taxes team who advise on all the above these issues plus other bespoke assignments including:

• Advising on compliance reporting obligations under the business expense payments regime.
• Drafting and updating staff expense and travel expense policies.
• Assisting with HMRC employment status reviews and helping to implement an internal review process.
• Structuring termination payments.
• Advising on National Living and Minimum Wage Regulations.
• Managing HMRC reviews.

With significant growth in the industry, new start up business and regular changes of ownership, the sport industry requires specialist transactional advisory and support services.

Whether assisting with a private sale or acting as reporting accountants in an IPO, our partner-led approach allows us to add real value to these processes. Within our transaction advisory services team, our key services include:

• Reporting accountants
• Vendor and acquisition due diligence
• Financial modelling
• Equity Capital Markets
• Exit strategies

Our dedicated sports compliance and advisory teams are on hand to deliver bespoke services to athletes and high net worth individuals. We advise athletes already residing in the UK, coming to the UK, or moving abroad, and we’re equipped to advise on complex tax matters, tax efficient remuneration planning, profit extraction, bearing in mind future plans for the business. Wherever you are in your personal journey, our team is ready to support you. We’ll unravel your financial knots, explain the best options and set out a path that can achieve your aims.

Our team has in-depth experience of dealing with HMRC on behalf of individuals, partnerships, companies, trustees, and charities, and are experts in dealing with a wide range of tax disputes including:

• Tax avoidance schemes
• Negotiating tax settlements with HMRC
• Tax disclosures
• Disputes with HMRC including alternative dispute resolution
• Tax investigations under Code of Practice 8 and 9

Applying tax legalisation to each client’s specific circumstances with confidence, we can undertake all financial and technical analysis, negotiate with HMRC, and seek a settlement on your behalf, should one be required.

Tax reliefs are a key advisory service at haysmacintyre and are particularly relevant to business in the sports and esports sectors. Our experts regularly work with our clients to prepare robust, comprehensive and accurate claims, with our scope being tailored for each client’s needs. This can extend to us preparing the required qualitative report or providing our guidance, templates and undertaking a detailed review if you prefer to prepare the report in-house. Our work also ensures that the maximum but supportable costs are included in a claim, by understanding your project processes and the roles of those involved.

haysmacintyre has assisted companies with R&D tax relief claims across a wide range of industries for over 15 years and we have an excellent track record of dealing with HMRC. With recent changes to R&D tax credits, and a significant increase in the enquiry/challenge rate, it’s important to partner with a firm who have a strong track record, have expert knowledge of your sector, and have qualified experts within the business working with you on your claims.

Many of our clients need a wide range of professional advice when conducting international business and we meet this need through MSI Global Alliance, a multidisciplinary international alliance of legal and accounting firms, which we co-founded.

Member firms work closely together to provide integrated multidisciplinary services, local expertise and global reach to a wide variety of clients. This enables us to provide a seamless service in managing the overseas activities of our clients.

International expansion advice

It may be that you’ve established your place in the UK market and are now looking for your next expansion opportunity. If you’ve performed your market research you may have identified a promising location for your product/service overseas, but you may not be quite sure how to access this market.

That’s where we can help. We work with clients to explore international opportunities and are happy to take the lead advisory role in liaising with advisors in our MSI Global Alliance. Often, we act as a clients’ in-house team, appraising the advice provided drawing on our knowledge of establishing international structures and effectively being your ‘interpreters’, making recommendations to allow your board to make an informed decision.

We frequently advise clients on establishing the ‘right’ type of overseas subsidiaries having regard to any unique tax status or requirements of the UK parent company.