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Small, unquoted companies can participate in Enterprise Management Incentive schemes (EMIs). The benefit of EMI options is that they allow employees who exercise share options to pay CGT on the entire amount.

Salary sacrifice

The budget changes are driving demand for “salary sacrifice” schemes, which allow you to use pre-tax income to pay for benefits which are facilitated by the employer.

The most common scheme is a company pension, but you can also buy company cars.

A couple can buy £110 a week in vouchers, or £5,720 a year, to pay for care for children up to the age of 16, including after-school care. A single person can buy £55 a week of vouchers.

If you could bring your income down below £150,000 to, say, £140,000, you would, naturally, be subject to the 40% not the 50% rate. Purchasing the maximum amount in childcare vouchers could produce a saving of as much as £2,100 a year in tax, according to figures from Grant Thornton.

You can also take a company car as a way of reducing your income. In this case the employer leases a car on your behalf, costing, say, £3,000.

The employer then asks you to give up £3,000 out of your gross salary — you would still have to pay benefit-in-kind tax on £1,000 but you can avoid tax and National Insurance contributions (Nics) on £2,000 if you take a low-carbon emission car. This alone saves £1,230, according to Gary Hull at Price Waterhouse Coopers.

Self-employment

Setting up a UK company is back in vogue as investors pay an effective rate of 41% — which is only attractive to higher-rate taxpayers facing a 50% tax rate plus Nics.

These investors are being advised to move their investment income into a company, which pays corporation tax at 28% and CGT at 18%. So on £100 of income you would pay £28 income tax, then £13 on the remaining £72 — total tax of £41. Alternatively, self-employed business owners can control their income by putting profits back into their company.

Again, any eventual sale will be taxed as a capital gain, and genuine trading companies can also claim entrepreneur relief so proceeds up to £1m are taxed at only 10%.

Other high-income earners are quitting their jobs to become self-employed consultants, which allows them to set up businesses that pay the small companies rate of tax at 21% for turnover of less than £300,000.

Freelancers, contractors, consultants and the self-employed can create personal service companies exempt from national insurance, or umbrella companies which do not attract a lower base rate of income tax, but workers can offset travel as well as other expenses.

Convert income into gains

Advisers are recommending unit trusts, where investors sell some units every year, in effect giving them an annual income.

While dividend income from the portfolio would still be taxed at 42.5% (the new top rate for dividends), you could go for investments with a minimal yield to avoid the tax.

Suppose you have a fund worth £150,000 that has a dividend yield of 6% — or an income of £9,000. From April, that would be taxed at a top rate of 42.5% or £3,825. Alternatively, you could go for a fund with a minimal yield and instead sell units worth £9,000 every year. These would fall within your CGT allowance, with no tax to pay.

You could also buy corporate bonds that don’t pay interest. Instead of being taxed as income, these are taxed as a gain.

They are sold at a discount to face value — the discount is the same value as the income you would otherwise receive. For example, an ordinary three-year bond with a face value of £100 and a 5% coupon would give a return of £5 a year or £15 over the term, taxed at £7.50 if you pay the 50% top rate.

Or you could buy a “zero-coupon bond” with a face value of £100 for £85 — you would get £100 at maturity, so your return would be £15 as above, but this would be taxed at 18% or just £2.70.