Understanding the Industry
As specialists in your creative world for over 40 years, we can help if you’re just starting out or already a long-term professional.
We understand the special issues you face in accountancy, from being non-stop on the road for months at a time to resting between jobs. Either way, keeping paperwork and accounts up to date are certainly low on your list of priorities. Therefore, let us take the burden of complex accounting, financial and regulatory issues off your shoulders.
Our Beginners’ guide to the
MUSIC INDUSTRY
We’ve learned from our clients on the inside, here are our top ten tips.
Our specialist Entertainment Services include:
Before signing a record, song writing or other creative contract, we can ascertain it deals with your rights and tax exposure in the most efficient way. The same principle applies to films and film finance.
Take the worry out of preparing national and international tour budgets by letting us advise and negotiate foreign and UK tax liabilities, collect fees, co-ordinate tour cash flows and finalise tour accounts. With tour expenses such as travel, sound and lighting equipment, management fees can account for more than 80% of a tour’s gross income. Our expertise can control and minimise these costs.
Let us take over the time-consuming task of registering you with the relevant collection societies, monitoring your income from around the world and submitting reduced withholding tax applications. The varying levels of Withholding Tax in different countries and the Double Taxation Treaties in place makes our tax planning expertise indispensable. We have close contact with film funders, theatrical promoters, concert promoters and tax advisers worldwide to ensure our advice is absolutely up-to-date. We can also ensure that any withholding tax paid overseas can be utilised against your UK tax liability.
With vast experience in the television and film industries, we can give invaluable advice on film funding and the grants and tax breaks available, as well as production budgeting and accounting.
In the complex world of royalties, you need a specialist on the top of their game. Our royalties expertise means we can:
• carry out royalty reviews in the UK, Europe and the US
• provide desk-top royalty reviews
• prepare third party royalties
• monitor incoming royalty statements
• organise registrations with the numerous overseas collection societies
• prepare royalty reviews for record companies, music publishers, royalty collection societies, video and film companies, book publishers, computer and video games companies – anyone who accounts on a royalty basis.
With app and download income flows expanding exponentially, the digital world is rapidly becoming the major contributor to income for many. We can help plan controls and monitor your income, not only to maximise your income flow but also to ensure you receive all the reliefs and tax breaks available.
We can help with everything from car and equipment deals to animation sponsorship, product endorsement and merchandising.
David Sloane, founder of Sloane & Co. is our passionately interested and hugely experienced head of Entertainment Services.
As a member of the British Academy of Experts and a checked Expert with the Law Society, he is regularly called upon by the courts to give background information and advice on tax, royalty and financial issues.
Famously, he was the investigating accountant retained by Gilbert O’Sullivan in the case of O’Sullivan-v-Management Agency and Music Limited and others (1983 3 All ER 351).
This case set new law and led to a major re-drafting of all subsequent record, management and music publishing agreements.