Hire wife as trainee

[meanttobeworking]

Well IMO do that then and forget the LTD just for now. All the LTD adds at this point is a tax break which has you worrying and us posters disagreeing etc. So just forget it.

Get her training, do the right thing and forget about pennies. Give it six months, a year and when she has better skills re-visit the LTD and see if she is now much closer to adding value and the answer will be black and white.

If she sticks with it and it's not just a fad then your path will be much clearer.

And if she isn't employed then just take her on as everyone else does when they use the wife as a tax mule. It's allowed as per the Arctic case so just do it anyway. Don't and complexities in around the training muddy the waters.

I hate it when you're right

[meanttobeworking]

If she's interested in UX, I received a marketing email for this course earlier today:
https://purplegriffon.com/courses/ot...-ux-foundation

This looks excellent, thanks

[northernladuk]

I hate it when you're right

It isn't bloody often so won't be too much of a problem

[meanttobeworking]

If you really do want to help her learn and not bothered about the tax element would it be worth looking in to putting her on as an apprentice.

Out of genuine interest… how would you say this changes anything? I’d still have to pay her a salary (and get the small tax break), and the government would be down £14,250 for her training. But yet somehow it seems more legit ?

[northernladuk]

Out of genuine interest… how would you say this changes anything? I’d still have to pay her a salary (and get the small tax break), and the government would be down £14,250 for her training. But yet somehow it seems more legit ?

I've no idea. Just a thought that popped in to my head that might be worth looking at to save some money.

[meanttobeworking]

I've no idea. Just a thought that popped in to my head that might be worth looking at to save some money.

That's the weird thing. There's a government scheme which allows me to take someone with zero experience on, and the government will pay their training costs up to £15,000, and they insist I pay them a wage (which would be tax deductible).

But if I take them on on my own and do the same thing, if somehow feels shady.

[Lance]

That's the weird thing. There's a government scheme which allows me to take someone with zero experience on, and the government will pay their training costs up to £15,000, and they insist I pay them a wage (which would be tax deductible).

But if I take them on on my own and do the same thing, if somehow feels shady.

shady? You mean too good to be true?

[northernladuk]

shady? You mean too good to be true?

No.. Slim.

[meanttobeworking]

shady? You mean too good to be true?

What would you say the difference is between the two arrangements though? Both involve someone with zero experience. Both involve payment of a modest salary for which the Ltd receives a small tax break. One costs the government circa £15k, the other costs them circa nothing. Yet the one that costs the government more seems to feel legit, whilst the one that doesn't seems not to.

As I've said above, I'm not looking for someone to reassure me it's all ok if it isn't. This post comes from a motivation to get things right, not to try and get away with something wrong. I'm looking for someone to put into words what's wrong with one that isn't wrong with the other. But nobody can (yet). I'm starting to think that perhaps either arrangement would give me the same uneasiness because it's someone known to me, rather than a stranger.

[Lance]

What would you say the difference is between the two arrangements though? Both involve someone with zero experience. Both involve payment of a modest salary for which the Ltd receives a small tax break. One costs the government circa £15k, the other costs them circa nothing. Yet the one that costs the government more seems to feel legit, whilst the one that doesn't seems not to.

As I've said above, I'm not looking for someone to reassure me it's all ok if it isn't. This post comes from a motivation to get things right, not to try and get away with something wrong. I'm looking for someone to put into words what's wrong with one that isn't wrong with the other. But nobody can (yet). I'm starting to think that perhaps either arrangement would give me the same uneasiness because it's someone known to me, rather than a stranger.

It's like many of the things that a small company cannot do but a large company can. The scale of the business changes things.
A large company putting a junior consultant through an MBA is OK.
A PSC putting its owner through an MBA is definitely not OK.
The difference being the scale, and the recipient of the benefit.

Who's to say that what you suggest is going to cause problems? The thing is HMRC won't bat an eyelid if you're a 50+ company and get a few juniors on an apprentice. But you're not, and you're not proposing that.
They might bat more than an eyelid and look a lot closer.

For me, I'd prefer to avoid the gaze of HMRC entirely. Not because I'm doing anything wrong, but because I don't have time to deal it.

You could find out that you're absolutely fine doing what you propose. But it might take 2 years and involve a deep investigation of the last 6 years of your business.