Wife has asked Revenue dumb question and left her name!

[psychocandy]

Hi Arab,

Welcome to the forum. I have a fear of calling HMRC too and it is very easy to be caught off guard with them! I don't think you have too much to worry about though as what you should be taking out of the business is a salary and then dividends. Salary comes out of the pre-tax profits of the company, expenses are removed and then the left-over has corpration tax applied - the rest is profit that is distributable by the shareholders. So it doesn't matter what you take or when you take it as long as you have enough to settle your corporation tax liabilities.

So now, I wouldn't now be fearing an investigation but for your peace of mind I would make sure I have investigation insurance so that should the tax man ever come knocking, you have insurance to cover the accountants' fees that can rack up during these exercises.

Kind Regards

Admin

Not quite sure why your making OP worried here. About 0.00001% increased chance I reckon.

But I would agree that having some sort of cover for investigations is a no brainer.

[quackhandle]

Are you sure your wife is cut out for contracting?


Oh come on, someone had to.


qh

[tractor]

...

What did the advisor answer in response to her question?

My first thought and if it was favourable, I hope your wife was taping the call for 'training purposes'

[stek]

I've worked at 'The Ministry' at Longbenton, based on what I've seen there I'm surprised anything gets done at all, ever.....

[northernladuk]

To be honest I don't how is the dafter of the two of you. Your wife for getting involved in things she plainly doesn't understand or you for thinking this question is wrong? Tax planning is your right, HMRC expect it and there is nothing wrong in doing it legitimately. You have tax options and you have to make informed decisions on how best to use them. The only thing is she is asking the wrong person how to run her tax affairs which the very bored person at HMRC will just shake his head at and go to the next call.

Now if you are paying your wife I would start worrying.....

[psychocandy]

To be honest I don't how is the dafter of the two of you. Your wife for getting involved in things she plainly doesn't understand or you for thinking this question is wrong? Tax planning is your right, HMRC expect it and there is nothing wrong in doing it legitimately. You have tax options and you have to make informed decisions on how best to use them. The only thing is she is asking the wrong person how to run her tax affairs which the very bored person at HMRC will just shake his head at and go to the next call.

Now if you are paying your wife I would start worrying.....

Agree. Never let the Mrs loose anywhere near the money.....

[kingcook]

I love her dearly (really!) but the Mrs has possibly landed me in it, so would appreciate your thoughts:

Basically she was trying to suss out how much dividend we might take out of the business before end tax year and was confused about tax liability. Accountant on holiday, I was out of the country....result, she phoned HMRC and gave her surname (that's all, but its a very unusual name). Her question led to a discussion in which she uttered the phrase that made my blood run cold when she related to me "so it would be better if we took out as little as possible before year end so as to avoid paying too much tax?". Yep, she asked a taxman this.

Short of divorcing the dizzy woman, what do you reckon? Investigation likely?

Wait until you get to year end - now that will be scarey - when you have to file information with HMRC that tells them the exact amounts of personal and limited company income, tax paid, etc etc