HMRC treats retail and hospitality as higher-risk sectors, and an enquiry usually begins with whether the recorded takings look credible against purchases, staffing and opening hours. The protection is unglamorous: till readings kept, banking that matches them, supplier invoices filed, and a gross margin that holds steady month to month. We build that record as we go, so if HMRC ever asks, the answer already exists.

Palmers Green has long-established Greek-Cypriot and Turkish communities. We work in Turkish as well as English — see our Turkish-speaking accountant page — and in Persian and Italian. For everything else we work in English, and we would rather say so than overpromise.

Green Lanes through Palmers Green is lined with independent food and retail businesses, and with them come the two problems that come with the trade: VAT on mixed baskets where hot, cold, ambient and standard-rated stock sit side by side, and payroll where shifts and tips have to be handled properly.

Both are ordinary work once the recording is right at the till. Both are expensive to reconstruct a year later from a weekly takings figure.

• Restaurants, cafés and takeaways
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Shops and restaurants along Green Lanes change hands regularly, often informally and often between people who know each other. The handshake is usually fine. What is not fine is discovering afterwards which of two very different transactions actually took place.

Assets or shares?

Buying the assets of a business — the fittings, the stock, the goodwill, the lease — is not the same as buying the company that owns them. In an asset purchase you leave the company’s history behind, including its tax position and its liabilities. In a share purchase you inherit all of it, known and unknown. Buyers almost always want assets; sellers often prefer shares, because the tax on the gain can be more favourable. Which one you are doing should be decided deliberately, not discovered at completion.

Staff usually come with the business

Where a business transfers as a going concern, the employees generally transfer with it, on their existing terms and with their continuous service intact. Buyers are frequently surprised by this, and by the fact that dismissing someone because of the transfer is difficult. Ask for the staff list, the contracts and the length of service before you agree a price rather than after.

VAT on the sale itself

A sale of a business as a going concern can fall outside the scope of VAT, which saves the buyer a substantial cash amount at completion. The conditions are specific and both sides have to be in the right position for it to apply. It is worth checking early, because if it is charged when it need not have been, recovering it is slow and occasionally impossible.

The N13 postcode covers Palmers Green and Bowes Park, but it does not follow the borough boundary. Most of N13 is in the London Borough of Enfield. Parts of Bowes Park, towards Bounds Green, are in Haringey. For tax this makes no difference, because HMRC does not care which council you are in. For business rates, licensing and any scheme for let property, it decides who you deal with. Check the name on the bill before you assume.

Green Lanes also runs through more than one borough. A family with a shop in Palmers Green and a second site further down in Harringay deals with two councils, two rates bills and possibly two licensing regimes. The accounts and the VAT return still cover both sites together. If you are thinking of opening a second unit, talk to us first. A second property can also take away small business rate relief on the first.

Palmers Green sits within our work across the borough. See our page for accountants in Enfield, or accountants in North London for the wider area.

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Palmers Green station is on Great Northern, with no direct rail link to Finchley. The simplest routes are the 125, which starts in Winchmore Hill and runs via Southgate and Whetstone to Finchley Central, or the 382 from Southgate station.

You do not have to come in: you can work with us entirely by phone, email and video call, and we respond within one working day.

Palmers Green is in the London Borough of Enfield, so Enfield Council sends your business rates bill and deals with premises licences, street trading and planning. None of that goes on a tax return, but rates are a fixed cost that can be relieved or appealed, and licence fees and timings belong in any plan for opening or changing premises.

N13 is shared between Enfield and Haringey, and Green Lanes crosses into Haringey to the south. Along the parade the rateable value follows frontage and floor area rather than turnover, so a quiet year does not reduce the bill; relief, and an appeal where the valuation looks wrong, are what can.

Small business rate relief is set nationally and applied by the council: a business with one property whose rateable value is below £15,000 can get relief, and below £12,000 the relief is 100%. Taking on a second property can take it away from the first, so it is worth checking before you sign a lease rather than after the bill arrives.

• Enfield Council: business and licensing
• Enfield Council: business rates relief
• Enfield Council: business licence and permit applications

The services we provide in Palmers Green include personal tax and self-assessment, bookkeeping, VAT returns and registration, payroll and year-end accounts and corporation tax. Each has its own page with what is included and how we work.