By Dr Peter Ellington, CEO, Triple Bottom Line Accounting
At Triple Bottom Line Accounting (TBLA), accounting has always meant more than compliance. People, Planet, Prosperity — that is who we are. In 2026, with the tax landscape shifting and financial pressure mounting, the “prosperity” part of our mission has never felt more urgent — or more achievable with the right support.
This newsletter sets out how we are evolving as a practice, and where the real opportunities lie right now.
A word before we begin: every company and every individual’s tax situation is different. The opportunities outlined here are starting points, not universal prescriptions. But there are some generic tests that every business owner and self-employed individual should be running through regularly with their accountant:
- Sole trader or limited company? The right answer changes as your income, risk profile, and plans evolve.
- Salary, dividend, or pension — or a combination? The optimal extraction strategy in 2026 is rarely a single lever.
- Are your family’s tax positions being considered alongside your own?
- Is your business structure still aligned to your long-term objectives?
These are not one-off questions. They are annual conversations. Please speak to your TBLA account manager to work through what applies to your specific position — the answers can make a material difference.
How We Work: A Practice Built Around Your Success
We often talk about how TBLA operates — but the five pillars that underpin our practice are not just an internal framework. They are, we believe, precisely the right lens through which every business should be examining itself in 2026. The challenges of this year — rising costs, digital transformation, talent pressures, and an increasingly complex tax environment — demand that businesses are genuinely strong across all five dimensions.
The framework is Vi, MI, AI, PM and Ops: Vision, Management Information, Artificial Intelligence, Performance Management, and Operations. Ask yourself honestly: how does your business score on each?
Vision — Do you have a clear, written sense of where your business is going and why? Is it shared across your team? Without a clear vision, the other four pillars have no direction to pull in. At TBLA, our purpose as a B Corp certified practice shapes every decision we make.
Management Information — Are you receiving financial data that is timely and actionable? Not last quarter’s numbers presented months late, but real-time visibility that supports confident decisions. If your MI is retrospective rather than forward-looking, you are flying blind.
AI — Are you using AI seriously, or just dabbling? At TBLA, sophisticated paid Enterprise level privacy protected AI tools have materially improved our speed and quality — queries that previously took days are now turned around in hours. Every business in 2026 should have a clear position on where AI can improve efficiency and free up expertise for higher-value work. Our constantly evolving AI policy is available on request.
Performance Management — Does every person in your team have a clear line of sight between their individual work and your strategy? At TBLA, every team member meets their line manager every four months specifically to align on this. Without that structure, strategy stays at the top and never reaches the people delivering the work.
Operations — Are you getting work done at the right level, by the right people, at the right cost? We work with four highly skilled colleagues from QX Consultancy in India, freeing our UK team to focus on advising you rather than processing. Operational excellence is about intelligent allocation — improving both quality and value simultaneously.
Where does your business stand on each of these pillars? It is a conversation we are having with more and more clients — and one we are happy to have with you.
Tax Planning: With Pressure on Finances, Good Planning Has Never Mattered More
With fiscal drag, frozen thresholds, and rising National Insurance costs all squeezing businesses and individuals alike, the difference between good tax planning and no tax planning has rarely been so consequential. We are talking about entirely legitimate tax efficiency — not avoidance, and certainly not evasion.
Every client’s situation is unique. What follows are examples of areas where we are actively adding value. The right combination for you depends on your structure, income, family circumstances, and long-term objectives. Your account manager is the right starting point for that conversation.
Pension Contributions: A Powerful and Often Underused Tool
If your finances allow it and you can wait until age 57 to access your pension, moving money in now remains one of the most powerful HMRC-endorsed tax planning tools available. Consider a company director paying higher-rate income tax who makes a £20,000 employer pension contribution: the company receives corporation tax relief on that contribution, and the director pays no income tax or National Insurance on it. The combined saving can comfortably exceed £8,000 on a single contribution.
There has been some confusion following recent rule changes on salary sacrifice. To be clear: the new rules target only deliberate and clearly structured sacrifice arrangements, and they do not come into force for some years yet. Straightforward employer pension contributions and personal contributions remain entirely unaffected. If you are uncertain whether your current arrangements are affected, ask us — the answer is usually reassuring.
Spreading Income Across Your Family
Where it is economically justified, spreading income across family members remains a legitimate and effective strategy. Employing a family member who genuinely contributes to the business — perhaps a young adult helping with bookkeeping, marketing, or administration — and paying them a salary up to the personal allowance is straightforward, sensible planning. HMRC requires that any salary paid reflects real work done, and we ensure that job descriptions and payment levels are commercially defensible and properly documented. Where the economic substance is there, this is simply good planning that your accountant should be doing for you.
Are You in the Right Business Structure?
We routinely model tax outcomes under different profit levels and extraction strategies to determine the optimal structure for each client. The right answer between sole trader, partnership, and limited company shifts as your income grows and the tax rules evolve. With dividend tax, corporation tax, and employment costs all having moved significantly in recent years, a structure that was optimal in 2021 may no longer be so today. If we have not reviewed this with you recently, it is worth a conversation.
Making Tax Digital: It Is Here. Act Now
From 6 April 2026, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment (MTD for ITSA) becomes mandatory for sole traders and landlords whose qualifying gross income — from self-employment and property combined — exceeded £50,000 in the 2024/25 tax year. The threshold reduces to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028, so even if you are not in scope today, you likely will be soon.
Under the new regime, you will be required to:
- Maintain digital records of all income and expenses throughout the year
- Submit four quarterly updates to HMRC via approved software
- Submit a final declaration at the year end, replacing the traditional SA return
The first quarterly submission — covering 6 April to 5 July 2026 — is due by 7 August 2026. HMRC has confirmed there will be no penalty points for late quarterly submissions in the first twelve months for those joining in April 2026. That grace period is helpful, but it is not an invitation to delay. Leaving this transition until March will create unnecessary pressure and cost. The digital habits you form now will determine how smoothly this runs for years to come.
TBLA’s approach: We are contacting all clients in scope for April 2026 directly. Our strong preference is to move eligible clients onto FreeAgent — intuitive, MTD-compliant, and well-suited to self-employed individuals and landlords. We will help you set it up and ensure your quarterly submissions are handled smoothly.
If you think you may be in scope and have not yet heard from us, please get in touch now.
R&D Tax Relief: Collaborative, Rigorous, and Cost-Effective
Research and Development tax relief remains one of the most generous incentives in the UK for those companies qualifying R&D expenditure — but following significant regime reform and heightened HMRC scrutiny, quality and compliance matter more than ever. Poor-quality claims are now regularly challenged; the firms cutting corners are storing up serious problems for their clients.
At TBLA, we use the Whisper Claims platform, working collaboratively with clients throughout the process to build accurate, well-evidenced, and defensible claims. This collaborative approach allows us to be considerably more cost-effective than many competitors whilst maintaining a genuinely high-value return.
R&D relief is not just for laboratories. It applies to businesses that develop new products, processes, or software — or that improve existing ones in technically uncertain ways. This includes manufacturing businesses trialling process improvements, software firms building new functionality, and professional services firms developing innovative delivery models. Many businesses are sitting on unclaimed relief simply because they have never been asked the right questions. Ask us to see if you qualify – we will be honest about the eligibility and if we think you qualify working with you make a claim.
Fractional Financial Control: Strategic Expertise, Without the Full-Time Cost
One of the most significant areas of growth at TBLA in 2026 is our Fractional Financial Controller and Fractional CFO service. We work with businesses that need the strategic financial expertise of a seasoned finance director — but not on a full-time basis.
This goes well beyond bookkeeping. We are talking about budgeting and forecasting, cash flow modelling, improved visibility of your cash runway, better-informed bank and funder negotiations, funding readiness, board reporting, and strategic decision support. For growing SMEs and purpose-driven businesses, access to this level of expertise can genuinely transform outcomes.
As we continue to shift compliance work to our most efficient operational model — freeing our qualified professionals for advisory work — we have increased capacity to offer this service in 2026. If you would like to explore what a fractional financial controller arrangement might look like for your organisation, we would love to talk.
Interested in Fractional FC? Contact us to discuss your needs.
In Summary
2026 is the year in which the gap between businesses that manage their finances proactively and those that simply comply will widen considerably. Making Tax Digital, rising tax burdens, and a faster-moving regulatory environment all demand a more engaged, forward-looking relationship with your accountant.
Remember: no two tax situations are the same. The opportunities above are illustrative. Your account manager is here to assess what is relevant to your specific circumstances and help you build a plan that works for you, not just in principle, but in practice.
At TBLA, that is exactly what we are here to provide. We look after your prosperity — so that together, we can also look after people and planet.
Ready to take action? Here’s where to start:
Choose the conversation that matters most to you right now.
- Making Tax Digital — Talk to us about your MTD transition
- R&D Tax Relief — Find out if your business qualifies
- Fractional Financial Control — Explore what strategic finance support looks like for you
- Tax Planning — Book a review with your account manager
Triple Bottom Line Accounting | Caring, Professional, Progressive | B Corp Certified
Read some client case studies here: https://triplebottomlineaccounting.com/what-they-say/
Follow our 2026 Purpose in Practice series here: https://triplebottomlineaccounting.com/category/purpose-in-practice/
Peter Ellington set up Triple Bottom Line Accounting (TBLA) in 2009 following a long career in FTSE100 companies. He works mainly with our larger clients and also develops new aspects of our business. As we grow he is helping the team to adapt to progressive ways of working. He aspires to be the leader, mentor, and coach that enables the team at TBLA to build a transformative accountancy practice.
