Tax Advisers & Personal Tax Specialists in Faversham

Faversham has traded for centuries. It appears in Domesday as one of only two Kentish towns with a market, the Charter Market still runs three days a week, and around 500 listed buildings mark out a centre untouched by redevelopment. Brewing has gone on here since at least 1573, and Shepherd Neame, Britain’s oldest brewer, has operated from the same site since 1698. Beyond the ring road the orchards begin: Brogdale Farm holds the National Fruit Collection, more than 3,000 varieties across some 150 acres, and commercial fruit growing has shaped ME13’s working year for generations.

What that adds up to, in tax terms, is a town where many people work for themselves. We are Kent Tax Specialists, a practice qualified with the ACCA and the ATT, and a registered HMRC agent. We act as tax advisers in Faversham for sole traders, partnerships, licensees, growers, landlords and higher earners across ME13, from the town centre and the Creek out to Ospringe, Oare, Boughton and the villages on the downs.

The Charter Market, the food halls, the antiques trade around Standard Quay and the independent shops along the main streets support a working population that mostly invoices rather than clocks in. Makers, stallholders, artists, caterers, gardeners, therapists and consultants all sit in the same tax bracket of problems.

The first is knowing when a sideline becomes a business. Casual income above the £1,000 trading allowance must be declared, and a first year of trading means registering for Self Assessment by 5 October following the end of that tax year. The second is knowing what you can properly claim: stock, stall fees, market pitch costs, packaging and postage, a share of vehicle costs, and use of home where the work genuinely happens there. The third is the VAT question, which arrives quietly once turnover approaches £90,000, and which decides whether registration is compulsory or a choice worth making early. We prepare Self Assessment tax returns for Faversham’s self-employed and handle VAT registration and returns once the threshold is in view.

Most independents now trade in two places at once: the stall or shop, and a website or marketplace such as Etsy or eBay. Online platforms are required to report seller income to HMRC, so the digital half of a business is visible whether or not it has been declared through Self Assessment. Where turnover has grown gradually, from a hobby into something more, it is easy for the online side to fall behind the paperwork.

If some of it never made it onto a return, coming forward voluntarily is treated far more favourably than being found first. We quantify the position, working out what has and has not been declared, over which years, and what the likely liability is. We bring past years up to date through the appropriate disclosure route, agreeing a payment plan where needed and corresponding with HMRC throughout. Where HMRC has opened an enquiry rather than waiting for disclosure, our HMRC investigation service deals with the inspector directly, so the client is not doing that alone.

Shepherd Neame runs close to 300 pubs and hotels across London and the South East, and a tenanted or leased pub is not a job; it is a business, with rent, wet stock, staff, kitchen margins and a VAT registration attached to it. Licensees file as self-employed or in partnership, often with a spouse, and the numbers rarely behave predictably from one quarter to the next. Around them sits a wider hospitality workforce that is heavily freelance: chefs moving between kitchens, event and festival staff, drivers, cellar and cleaning contractors.

The recurring issues are practical. Partnership profit shares need to reflect what each partner actually does. Payments on account calculated on a strong year land hard in a weak one, and can be reduced where profits have genuinely fallen. Living accommodation that comes with a role has its own tax treatment. We work through all of it as part of personal tax advice rather than as a once-a-year form-filling exercise.

The fruit belt around Faversham runs on family growers, agricultural contractors and self-employed labour, and farm profits swing with the weather more than most trades. Farmers and market gardeners can use profit averaging, spreading taxable profits across two or five years to offset a bad harvest against a good one, reducing tax in a volatile run of seasons. Machinery, packhouse equipment, cold storage and vehicles bring capital allowances into play, where timing matters as much as amount.

Diversification adds another layer: barn conversions, holiday cottages, glamping and let cottages count as property income. Since the furnished holiday lettings regime was abolished from 6 April 2025, they are taxed under the ordinary property rules, with mortgage interest restricted to a basic rate credit and capital allowances withdrawn. Letting income counts toward the Making Tax Digital thresholds, which began in April 2026 for qualifying income over £50,000 and fall to £30,000 from April 2027. We prepare landlord and property tax returns and ready records for quarterly filing under Making Tax Digital.

Selling a let cottage, a paddock, a development plot or a second home triggers Capital Gains Tax, and the residential reporting rules are unforgiving: where tax is due, the gain must be reported and paid within 60 days of completion, leaving little room to gather figures afterwards. In a town of old buildings and long-held family property, the complications are usually historic rather than straightforward. Decades of improvement works, periods when a property was lived in and periods when it was not, land sold off separately from a house, and joint or inherited ownership all change the number.

Working out private residence relief correctly, valuing historic improvements, and apportioning gains between joint or inherited owners all take time, and none of it can be rushed once a 60-day clock is running. Our Capital Gains Tax service works the calculation before contracts are exchanged, gathering the purchase history, improvement records and occupation dates in advance, so the reliefs due are identified and planned for rather than discovered under pressure after completion.

Everything above sits inside eight services, all available locally: Self Assessment, personal tax advice, landlord and property returns, Capital Gains Tax, VAT, Making Tax Digital, CIS tax refunds for construction subcontractors working across Swale, and HMRC investigation support. Each has its own Faversham page setting out what is involved, what is needed to get started, and roughly what it costs, so it is possible to see the shape of the work before making contact.

The people doing the work are qualified with the ACCA and the ATT, and the practice is a registered HMRC agent, dealing with HMRC through official agent channels on a client’s behalf. Fees are fixed and agreed in writing before anything starts, so the cost is known before you commit, and there are no surprise charges once the work is underway. Most instructions begin with a short conversation about the situation, followed by a written scope and fee, and then the return, calculation or correspondence itself, kept to the timescale that has been agreed.

We act for clients across Faversham itself and the surrounding parishes, including Ospringe, Oare, Davington, Boughton under Blean, Selling, Throwley and Eastling, as well as the town centre, the Creek and the villages out on the downs. The client base reflects the area: growers and agricultural contractors out among the orchards, licensees and hospitality staff around the pubs and hotels, market traders and independent shop owners near the Charter Market, and landlords with let cottages and barn conversions scattered across the parishes.

Most work is handled by phone, email and secure document exchange, which suits harvest weeks, pub service hours and a commute on the high-speed line alike, without anyone needing to take time off to visit an office during the working day. Where a face-to-face conversation is more useful, particularly for a first meeting or a more complicated property or business matter, we arrange one at a time that fits, rather than insisting on it as standard practice.

If you are looking for a tax adviser in Faversham, start with the facts rather than the paperwork. A first year of trading, a pub tenancy that has grown more complicated than expected, a bad season that has made payments on account look absurd, a cottage you are thinking of selling, an online sideline that never quite made it onto a return, or a letter from HMRC that arrived without warning: tell us what is going on and we will tell you plainly what needs doing, what it costs, and how quickly it can be done.

There is no obligation attached to that first conversation, and no vague estimate either: once we understand the situation, we set out a fixed fee in writing before any work begins, so there are no surprises later. As ACCA and ATT qualified advisers and a registered HMRC agent, we deal with HMRC on your behalf and keep you informed in plain language throughout, however straightforward or overdue the matter is.