Creating a joint partnership with wife (are my maths correct?)

[Alchemy Accountancy]

I'm still learning my way around how taxes work and I believe I'm leaving a huge amount of money on the table by keeping all my current income under my name, does the following scenario sound right to you guys? I've tried to simplify the numbers below to make things easy.

My wife works part time and earns £15,000 / year, I'm expecting to make £85,000 / year in profit through contracting. Assuming I do a simple self assessment tax return the expectation would be the following

Wife: 15000 - (1500 normal tax) = £13,500
Me: 85000 - (26700 normal tax = £58,300
Combined we would take home £71,800

However, if we set up a joint partnership with 50/50 ownership split and I pay myself £45,000 / year (for the sake of simplicity), and distributed the remaining £40000 equally between us, it should look like this

Wife: 15000 - (1500 salary tax) + 2000 tax free + 18000 - (1350 dividend tax at 7.5%) = £32,150
Me: 45000 - (11000 salary tax) + 2000 tax free + 18000 - (6750 dividend tax at 37.5%) = £47,250
Combined we would take home £79,400

Does this look right? Is there something obvious I'm missing? I understand I could lower my salary further to optimize the value of the dividend, or change the partnership split to bring my wife right up to the edge of the £46350 tax band, but otherwise does this seem right?

What you are suggesting - gifting shares to your wife (subject to a few caveats), will usually reduce the overall amount of tax that you pay. The maths isn't quite right so I'd suggest running the actual figures by your accountant - they will then be able to quantify the benefits with the right maths (and outline any risks) of this course of action.

If you don't have an accountant, then there are plenty that offer out advice for free on this forum - I'd suggest one of these would be a good place to start.