Closing a Company - what's your exit strategy?

[northernladuk]

Go umbrella if that is the case or open Ltd in wifes name ....

Another option is to convert the company into a property investment company or use the company funds to invest in equities

No tax to pay at this stage but PnL is taxed

And this is a perfect example why asking a bunch of your peers open ended generic questions with no detail isn't a good idea. Some idiot will invariably post a pile of utter crap like this.

[Win]

I am looking to close my company - have thought about it and do not think outside roles will be of interest to me for some time now.
Have about 40 K in the company and with MVL cost of around 3k and all the things about lawyers etc around it , I am thinking the best option would be to bring the balance under 25 K by paying into a pension and then closing the company using the accountants and claiming ER.
The only issue is that paying a pension of 15K would result in a loss for this year - which when I ask the accountant - they are like you cna do it but not recommended .
Does anyone have any experience of this situation ? are you Ok to make a loss in terminal year or any year due to pensions ?

To add even if I carry the pension contribution to previous year it will make a loss for that year too. Last few years have not been kind.
I felt my accountant was more keen to push for a recommended MVL provider to get some kickback

[Maslins]

Ensure you'll be able to offset any new losses in the current accounting year against some profits, otherwise you won't get CT relief on the big pension contribution. There is more flexibility for losses in final years, but if you've been making losses for multiple years you may be limited.

Also bear in mind that assuming you do get CT relief, and you currently have £40k net assets, you'd need to put more like £20k into a pension to end up sub £25k net assets. Reason being you should get 19% of the pension contributuion back as CT relief, so £20k would only end up reducing net assets by £16.2k.

You should be able to get an MVL for a simple cash only case for about half what you've been quoted, and that's all in (ie including statutory advertising/bond costs and VAT).