Accountants for Family Businesses.

How much should you pay children working in the business? Should it be market rate, higher because they’re family, or lower because they’ll eventually inherit? Should non-active family members receive income from the business? What about the founder who’s semi-retired but still wants full pay? These decisions affect both business finances and family relationships.

Walker Hill helps you develop compensation frameworks that separate roles from relationships. We advise on market rates for positions, whether salaries or dividends make more sense tax-wise, how to structure payments to exiting family members, and how to document decisions so everyone understands the rationale. We also help you understand the tax benefits of different payment structures and whether your current approach is optimal.

Succession in family businesses often spans years or decades. The founder isn’t ready to exit, the next generation wants more control, siblings disagree about direction, and nobody wants to have difficult conversations. Delay too long and succession happens in crisis, not in a planned way that preserves value and relationships.

Walker Hill facilitates succession planning that starts with honest conversations about everyone’s goals. We help you understand the financial implications of different transition paths, structure buy-ins that are affordable for the next generation, plan tax-effectively for exits, coordinate with estate planning, and create timelines that work for all stakeholders. Succession planning needs personalised advice based on your specific family dynamics and business situation.

The business generates profit. Should you reinvest for growth, distribute to family members who need income, or pay down debt? Different family members have different priorities. Active members want reinvestment. Retired members want income. Younger generations want debt reduction. Balancing these competing needs affects both business strategy and family harmony.

Walker Hill provides financial analysis that shows the trade-offs. We model what different scenarios mean for business growth, family income, debt levels, and long-term value. We help you develop distribution policies that balance current needs against future sustainability. We also identify tax-effective ways to extract value that satisfy multiple objectives without unnecessarily enriching the tax office.

Many family businesses operate through structures set up decades ago under different tax rules, different family circumstances, and different business models. Discretionary trusts created in the 1980s. Multiple companies for reasons nobody remembers. Property held personally when it should be in separate entities. These legacy structures often create more problems than they solve.

Walker Hill reviews your existing structures, explains what each entity does, identifies problems with the current setup, and advises on whether restructuring makes sense. We model the cost and benefit of changes, coordinate with legal advisors to implement restructures, and ensure transitions happen tax-effectively. Sometimes the old structure is fine. Sometimes it’s costing you hundreds of thousands in unnecessary tax or limiting your strategic options.

Transferring wealth from one generation to the next involves estate planning, business succession, tax planning, and family governance. Done poorly, it triggers capital gains tax on business assets, leaves control uncertain, creates disputes among heirs, and destroys value built over decades. Done well, it preserves wealth, minimises tax, maintains business continuity, and strengthens family relationships.

Walker Hill coordinates wealth transfer planning across legal, financial, and business dimensions. We work with your lawyers on estate planning, structure business succession to align with estate plans, identify tax concessions available for family business transfers, and help you develop governance frameworks that manage family involvement in the business across generations. This requires strategic planning that starts well before anyone retires or passes away.

Family businesses often have multiple entities: operating companies, property holding trusts, investment companies, family trusts. Each has its own tax return, its own bank accounts, its own compliance obligations. Nobody has a clear view of overall financial position or consolidated performance. Making strategic decisions becomes difficult when financial data is scattered across multiple entities.

Walker Hill provides consolidated financial reporting that shows your overall position across all entities. We track intercompany loans, ensure distributions are made tax-effectively, coordinate compliance across all entities, and give you single-point visibility over family business and wealth. You’ll understand total family assets, business performance, and how decisions in one entity affect others.

As family businesses grow, they take on more risk. Bigger contracts, more employees, property ownership, debt, and potential liability. If something goes wrong, you could lose not just the business but personal assets accumulated over generations. Many family businesses don’t have adequate asset protection because structures were set up for tax purposes, not risk management.

Walker Hill reviews your asset protection alongside tax planning. We advise on separating high-risk business activities from low-risk investment assets, structuring property ownership to protect personal assets, ensuring insurance coverage is adequate, and creating structures that limit liability exposure. Protecting assets means thinking about the worst case scenarios before they happen, not after.

Family businesses face unique governance challenges. How are decisions made? What happens when family members disagree? Who has authority? What rights do non-active family members have? Without clear frameworks, disputes escalate, decisions get delayed, and family relationships suffer. Business performance declines when governance fails.

Walker Hill helps you implement financial governance frameworks that separate ownership from management. We advise on dividend policies, board structures that work for family businesses, reporting frameworks that keep everyone informed, and decision-making processes that respect both business needs and family relationships. Sometimes you need tailored solutions that wouldn’t work in non-family businesses but suit your specific circumstances.