Salary paid to yourself.....

[Fred Bloggs]

But you ask two different accountants and get two different answers !!!! Surely you pay an accountant for his knowledge and expertise...

You pay for his opinion. Opinions vary.

[SueEllen]

But you ask two different accountants and get two different answers !!!! Surely you pay an accountant for his knowledge and expertise...

That's because laws and regulations particularly tax laws in this country aren't black and white.

The only thing that tends to be black and white are those covering VAT. You ask the VAT people and they will give you a straight answer.

[DaveB]

That's because laws and regulations particularly tax laws in this country aren't black and white.

The only thing that tends to be black and white are those covering VAT. You ask the VAT people and they will give you a straight answer.

WSES.

This is a grey area for tax legisaltion. There is no right or wrong answer. Paying some Incometax / NI *may* keep you from attracting the attention of the HMRC investigation peolpe, it may not. No-one knows for sure or has any supporting evidence either way.

The one that is clear is that if you try and screw the VAT man you *will* get into a lot of trouble. VAT rules are clear, the VAT people are happy to help and answer questions. If you still screw up they will come round with the rubber hoses and make you regret it.

[psychocandy]

OK. So its your company and ultimately its up to you.

Your an IT contractor, so accountancy is unlikely to be your thing. Fair does you can make an effort to know what the rules are as you should if you're running your own company.

However, no matter how many times you read the HMRC guidelines it doesnt tell you what the rules are.

As someone said, its not black and white. So you employ a specialist (i.e. an accountant) but opinions vary.

Pay out £1000 in NI just in case or dont bother.

How on earth are you supposed to make that decision?

Not being funny but if someone came to me and asked me about how to do something on their Solaris server, then I'd hope that my reply would be pretty much the same as another Solaris expert. Not heres my opinion - this might be worth doing or not!!!! But someone else might give you a completely different answer.

[psychocandy]

Maybe my head is just too filled with IT crap over the years. Like heres the command - its exact, Spell it wrong it wont work. Do something slightly different and it'll be different. Call a machine donke instead of donkey and you wont be able to login to donkey even though its similar.

Accountancy seems to me to be a bit vague. It all seems to be, well we'll do it this way, just in case, or we'll put this rate down even though we just lost you £40. Never mind.

[psychocandy]

WSES.

This is a grey area for tax legisaltion. There is no right or wrong answer. Paying some Incometax / NI *may* keep you from attracting the attention of the HMRC investigation peolpe, it may not. No-one knows for sure or has any supporting evidence either way.

The one that is clear is that if you try and screw the VAT man you *will* get into a lot of trouble. VAT rules are clear, the VAT people are happy to help and answer questions. If you still screw up they will come round with the rubber hoses and make you regret it.

I like black and white. You cant do it wrong then !!!!

[DaveB]

OK. So its your company and ultimately its up to you.

Your an IT contractor, so accountancy is unlikely to be your thing. Fair does you can make an effort to know what the rules are as you should if you're running your own company.

However, no matter how many times you read the HMRC guidelines it doesnt tell you what the rules are.

As someone said, its not black and white. So you employ a specialist (i.e. an accountant) but opinions vary.

Pay out £1000 in NI just in case or dont bother.

How on earth are you supposed to make that decision?

Not being funny but if someone came to me and asked me about how to do something on their Solaris server, then I'd hope that my reply would be pretty much the same as another Solaris expert. Not heres my opinion - this might be worth doing or not!!!! But someone else might give you a completely different answer.

There is always more than one way to skin a cat. You can solve your solaris problem with a dodgy bit of hacked together shell script or you can code up a nice little executable with proper error correction, memory mangement etc. Both will do the job, both *should* be realible and problem free. One is quicker and easier to do than the other. Which one do you choose?

The laws on what tax should be paid when and on what income are clear. You earn X you pay Y on date Z.

The grey bit comes in from the consequences of adjusting X to ensure that Y=0. The tax law is clear that the numbers work, but will HMRC decide you are taking the piss and paying an artifically low salary just to avoid the tax? That is the million odllar question, and the one no-one has a definitive answer to.

Welcome to the wonderfull world of Contracting

[psychocandy]

There is always more than one way to skin a cat. You can solve your solaris problem with a dodgy bit of hacked together shell script or you can code up a nice little executable with proper error correction, memory mangement etc. Both will do the job, both *should* be realible and problem free. One is quicker and easier to do than the other. Which one do you choose?

The laws on what tax should be paid when and on what income are clear. You earn X you pay Y on date Z.

The grey bit comes in from the consequences of adjusting X to ensure that Y=0. The tax law is clear that the numbers work, but will HMRC decide you are taking the piss and paying an artifically low salary just to avoid the tax? That is the million odllar question, and the one no-one has a definitive answer to.

Welcome to the wonderfull world of Contracting

FFS - its not too small an amount either. £1000 a year possibly. Perhaps I'm a tight arse but I want proof that I need to pay this out rather than just in case............

[psychocandy]

Would be interested to see what the main contractor accountants say/recommend about this?

[kingcook]

I chose to pay myself a nice round figure of £7,072 this tax year