We were instantly bowled over by Nico’s know-how, specialist expertise and experience

Bas remembers their first-ever meeting: “It turned into a brainstorming session the likes of which I hadn’t experienced before. Nico pelted us with suggestions, eye-openers every single one of them. It was quite impressive and overwhelming to see how precisely he knew what he was talking about. It would have been foolish not to engage Koppel to see where they would take us.” It was Koppel’s specialist tax know-how, Bas realised, that the financial advisers he had previously been working with simply didn’t have. “It’s not that we had been unhappy with the way things were being done, but we realised that the tax focus had consistently been lacking.”

The first tangible challenge Koppel was presented with involved profit-sharing bonds being tendered by shareholders. “The question was how to make the most of these fiscally. Nico came up with a selection of scenarios which he put through their paces, discussed with us and eventually implemented.” The outcome was a significantly better net tax yield than Medux had ever achieved, which understandably whetted Bas’s appetite.

You can’t miss what you never had, but once you’ve had it, you wouldn’t want to go back to being without it: this aptly describes how Bas Albers felt when he found himself talking to Nico Koppel about the tax issues affecting his organisation. “Nico told me that there was considerable room for improvement tax yield wise. He didn’t have to tell me twice!” Medux lost no time in engaging Koppel, and neither of them has looked back since.

Koppel went on to supply Medux with clear-cut and profitability-boosting answers to the many tax issues the business was grappling with. “Nico is there for us both professionally and privately. He also takes care of our taxes at the level of our personal companies, for example.” And there is more: “We recently started looking into alternative pension arrangements, as another major issue which we were not sure where to take. Nico presented us with his recommendations and showed us clearly how to proceed – all of it anchored, as always, in his vast experience and know-how.”

Bas now recognises the “Koppel factor” in each of the various parts of the business: “Tangible result in terms of vastly improved tax yields, that’s what I’m talking about. They truly boast a unique level of expertise that enables them time and again to come up with proposals and directions for solutions that would have gone undetected had it not been for them, and always in compliance with prevailing legislation and regulations.” Another example has been Nico’s advice to have Bas’s personal holding company rather than a mortgage bank furnish him with a home loan. Comments Bas: “A brilliant solution equity-wise: a home loan charged with 7.5 percent interest that qualifies for tax relief. If that’s not a win-win scenario, I don’t know what is. Nico did all the work right up to the taxman’s approval.”

And then there are the occasional urgent reasons for tapping into Nico’s knowledge, such as the tax audit Medux found itself on the receiving end of: “That was the best example ever of my being ‘unburdened’. The tax inspector notifies you of the impending tax audit and before you know it you find yourself fielding a barrage of questions. Major headaches, I can tell you. I’ve never been more relieved to have Nico step into the breach and steer everything in the right direction, in his inimitable matter-of-fact way.”

In addition to carrying out specialist duties for Medux, Koppel has now also assumed responsibility for the accounting records, annual accounts, tax returns, et cetera for each of the personal holding companies. The fact that Koppel has been recognised by the Tax and Customs Administration as a Horizontal Supervision partner adds to the attraction, as “it makes everything go more quickly and easily”.

All in all it was a good day for Bas when he first met up with Koppel: “They have given new meaning to the phrase ‘unburdening’, by taking over no matter what issue or activity it is that has been weighing you down. The arrangement has provided us with improved comfort tax-wise and a superior tax yield.” Concludes Bas: “I delegate this or that to them, they take care of it and the outcome unfailingly is a tangible improvement.”