Recruiting a person who alreay has another job

[TheBA]

northernladuk, there is nothing else to the story. My partner works in one place part time where she gets £6100/year. She helps me with the company, does most of the admin work and therefor would be sensible to employ her and maximize her allowance of £11k. It's not like we are trying to launder millions and billions and I want some complicated advice. Plain and simple.

I thought this forum was about people helping each other

You could pay her more than 4k as long as it's under the NI threshold. She may get hit with paye but then the company wouldn't pay CT.

That said ,speak with your accountant

[SlipTheJab]

I thought you had to be married to get away with using the other half as a tax mule?

[TheBA]

I thought you had to be married to get away with using the other half as a tax mule?

No necessarily, you can pay a non-married partner dividends but only if the structure has been in place since incorporation (I hope - this is based on lengthy discussions with my accountant and them seeking peer confirmation).
As for salary, if she's performing a role, surely you should be paying her for the work.

[SlipTheJab]

No necessarily, you can pay a non-married partner dividends but only if the structure has been in place since incorporation (I hope - this is based on lengthy discussions with my accountant and them seeking peer confirmation).
As for salary, if she's performing a role, surely you should be paying her for the work.

True but the OP seems to just want to use up her tax free allowance, if I remember the Arctic case placed emphasis on the fact they were married, not sure if you can just employ your girlfriend and start hiving off tax free cash...but I'm not a Lawyer (or an accountant for that matter).

[pr1]

True but the OP seems to just want to use up her tax free allowance, if I remember the Arctic case placed emphasis on the fact they were married, not sure if you can just employ your girlfriend and start hiving off tax free cash...but I'm not a Lawyer (or an accountant for that matter).

you can employ anyone if they're doing work for you (and are eligible to work in the same country as yourco)

[Pondlife]

True but the OP seems to just want to use up her tax free allowance, if I remember the Arctic case placed emphasis on the fact they were married, not sure if you can just employ your girlfriend and start hiving off tax free cash...but I'm not a Lawyer (or an accountant for that matter).

The OP hasn't mentioned dividends and was quite happy to just pay her up to the NI salary threshold.

Thanks to your post the seed of an idea is starting to sprout.

[FrontEnder]

True but the OP seems to just want to use up her tax free allowance, if I remember the Arctic case placed emphasis on the fact they were married, not sure if you can just employ your girlfriend and start hiving off tax free cash...but I'm not a Lawyer (or an accountant for that matter).

The Arctic case was about gifting shares to your spouse.

There's nothing wrong with employing anyone as long as they're actually doing work for you that justifies their salary. Conversely, it's completely wrong to just employ someone who does bugger all for you just to maximise the tax free allowance. Whether you're married to them or not is immaterial.

[SimonMac]

One thing you will have to sort out is her pension, although she will be under the limit for being eligible for an auto enrolled pension, you will need to show your company has something in place for when her wages go above the (I think) £155 a week mark

[pr1]

One thing you will have to sort out is her pension, although she will be under the limit for being eligible for an auto enrolled pension, you will need to show your company has something in place for when her wages go above the (I think) £155 a week mark

This takes 15minutes with NEST pensions and she may still choose to opt out of it anyway

[ndl]

as northernladuk correctly pointer out - I might have not given enough background to all of this. Originally I wanted to ask about the employment only and haven't thought that other details would matter. Sorry for that. Let me explain this situation in a bit more detail.

The company has dual-purpose - IT consultancy and sales of software. I am doing IT consultancy for clients and she would be responsible for selling another piece of software (and supporting it) to a different set of clients. We have split the shares 75:25 in order to reflect the work done (as 50:50 wouldn't be fare even if that would be more tax efficient). I am the only director now, but now I need to either make her a director or employ her so she can do the the other bits of work which I don't have time to pick up.

The question is now - would it be better to employ her as, let's say sales manager, leave 25% of shares and pay her a salary or leave 25% of shares and make her a director of a company?

Thank you.