Got Married - Add spouse ?

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

No, the accountant simply mentioned that HMRC recently have started attacking income shifting.

Unless there's something I, or anybody else here is unaware of, I think your accountant is a bit behind the times.

Barring a few tribunal cases regarding the use of dividend waivers over the last 5 years, HMRC and the government have shown no signs of attacking income shifting in a serious way since they lost the Arctic case. That was ten years ago. The Labour government made a bit of noise in light of that defeats about a new "Family business tax" which never emerged and since the coalition government came to power it was quietly dropped and nothing has been mentioned since.

This doesn't mean that HMRC couldn't use the settlements legislation to attack an easy target - its fairly easy for them to attack a gift of shares between spouses if they can show that the spouse exemption doesn't apply (e.g. because the shares only entitled the spouse to income or there were obvious arrangements for that income to be diverted back to them) but otherwise there's a chance they are setting themselves up for another Arctic.

We can and have had many discussions on here about the merits and risks of income shifting with e.g. other family members, unmarried partners etc. and whilst those scenarios are not as clear-cut as people think (there's a lot of misunderstanding about the legislation), its all hypothetical unless HMRC decide to start attacking it again. My opinion is that HMRC have neither the time nor resource to go down that road while there are easier and bigger targets but YMMV.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

The accountant did mention about making her a secretary and it being beneficial when the company closes down, though I havent asked how.

Being a company officer would be beneficial if she was also a shareholder as she would then potentially be eligible for entrepreneurs relief on any capital distribution (e.g. 25% of whatever profit is left in the company). Quite a tax saving, assuming the government doesn't find a way of excluding us from this relief in the near future.

"If she is a director you could also pay her a nominal salary. Discuss this with your accountant"

I assume I also pay if she were a secretary?

You can pay anyone any salary you like. However there is a question over that salary's tax-deductibility (in terms of corporation tax relief) for YourCo if the salary is not "wholly and exclusively" for business purposes and where a salary is effectively something for nothing or grossly disproportionate HMRC May consider this to be the case.

In practice most people think the legal responsibility of being a company director is sufficient to justify a basic salary. The same justification could arguably be made for a company secretary, especially if they are having some kind of role in the company (e.g. basic admin, handling contracts, doing books etc.). Opinion on what is reasonable varies. Some will say up to the full tax allowance (£11k) is fine. Some prefer to be more cautious (my wife currently gets a nominal salary of £2.4k a year for being Co. Sec. and basic admin though I'm considering making her a director and upping this a bit).

This is why I recommended you speak to your accountant about this.

So does splitting the shares 75-25 or making her a secretary or both have any tax benefits, if yes what specifically?

Meanwhile I will read up more on s624.

Thank you

See above but the two things are only loosely linked in terms of eligibility to ER. Beyond that, splitting the shares allows her to receive dividends (and make use of both the £5k dividend allowance and any unused personal tax allowance) and paying a nominal salary if she's a company officer also allows you to make use of some of her tax allowance whilst reducing your company corporation tax bill.

The best general overview of s624 is, IMO, this one:
https://www.taxation.co.uk/Articles/.../324521/me-you