Farming & Agriculture

We deliver specialist accountancy solutions based around many years of collective experience in the Farming and Agricultural industries.

Being based in rural parts of the County, all of our offices have experience in supporting agricultural clients.

Six good reasons to use a UK200 Agriculture Group Accountant

Our Clients

Our farming and agricultural clients are a broad church. We act for:

• The landowner who lets his land for agricultural, husbandry or other rural pursuits
• The gentlemen who now finds that he qualifies for the Basic Payment by virtue of the fact that he looks after a field of a few acres
• The lifestyle farmer who has a share farming arrangement
• The farmer who has a profit-sharing arrangement with a contractor
• The farmer who uses contractors for elements of his farming operation
• The farmer who has formed a cooperative arrangement with neighbours
• The working farmer who uses his own labour
• The predominantly arable farmer
• The livestock farmer
• The poultry farmer
• The farmer carrying out a mixed farming operation
• The tenant farmer
• The farmer who owns little or no land himself but makes his living by providing the contracting service
• The farmer who has diversified and established income streams removed from the mainstream farming operation

Diversification

Diversified activities we have had experience of include the following:

• Golf clubs
• Office or industrial units
• Fisheries
• Game and clay pigeon shooting
• Holiday lets
• Caravans, camping and glamping
• Equestrian pursuits
• Communication masts
• Location for TV and film sets
• Environmental operations

Our Team

Testimonials are always important and when they come from another Accountant to one of your Clients they must carry some weight. The client remarked that an Agricultural seminar he got talking to another delegate who told him that, “Really there are only three Practitioners who understand Farming properly in the County of Essex. He then preceded to tell the names and one was our own Paul Short”. It is for this reason that he is our team leader in this specialist sector.

Within our team we have a wide range of experience to handle the issues arising.

For example, Paul Short has acted for farming clients for over 25 years. He is an NFU professional, member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Farming Group and is an active member of the UK200Group Agricultural Group. His strength is in dealing with arable farmers, having little involvement with livestock farmers. In particular, Paul is experienced in dealing with long-established farming families and the issues of wealth preservation and succession planning. He is the trustee of a number of family trusts, testimony to his close involvement.

Having a considerable number of arable farms in his portfolio Paul’s team are familiar with the specialist approach taken to prepare the Farm accounts.

In the Dengie Peninsula John Smith-Daye is the partner to talk to. The Maldon office has a tradition in agricultural clients, and John has built on his experience of advising farming clients during his career through contacts within the industry, be they farmers, bankers, co-operatives or other advisers.

Nick Forsyth is our most experienced Partner when it comes to poultry. For many years, Mike Lambert, our founding partner, dealt with our poultry clients and was involved in turkey breeding himself. After Mike’s retirement in 2003 the baton was handed to Nick to keep our tradition of expertise in this area going. Nick was the logical choice as he already had some experience of poultry operations.

Our partner corps is backed up by teams who understand farm accounts, farm tax and the concerns facing farmers at the present time.

Specialist Advice

Farmers do need specialist advice and not all accountants are equipped to provide this. At the moment special advice might encompass the following areas:

• The accounting tax treatment of the basic payment
• Strategies for farmhouses to protect agricultural property relief
• Ensuring favourable tax treatment of farm cottages
• Woodlands
• The use of trusts to protect family wealth
• The impact of the pre-owned assets legislation
• The protection of capital tax relief where farms are diversifying into other businesses
• The impact of divorce and separation on the family farm

The above list is not exhaustive but it highlights the need to have advisors with experience in these areas.

In addition to our accounts teams, we have a specialist tax department to provide expert advice in the above areas.