Spouse as Secretary & Shareholder

**Clare@InTouch** · 3 April 2013, 13:08

You can simply appoint your wife on Companies House for her to be Company Secretary.

You can pay her a wage for the admin work she does, just make sure it's realistic. If she does enough to justify it, and doesn't earn elsewhere, £641 a month from April onward will be enough to count for her state pension without giving rise to tax or NI (assuming a normal tax code).

You can then either gift some of your own shares to your wife, for which you just need a Share Transfer Form, or you can issue new ones. If you want to keep at 50:50 then simply transfer 25 of yours to her.

It's worth getting some advice from an accountant to ensure there's nothing else you need to think about given your individual circumstances.

**akz786** · 3 April 2013, 13:39

Originally posted by Clare@InTouch View Post

You can then either gift some of your own shares to your wife, for which you just need a Share Transfer Form, or you can issue new ones. If you want to keep at 50:50 then simply transfer 25 of yours to her.

.

Thats not too bad then, is that a share allotment SH-01 you are referring to?
50:50 is safe for wife/husband co?
Thanks

**northernladuk** · 3 April 2013, 13:57

Have you spoken to your accountant about this? He will know your affairs and be able to advise based on that rather than just asking random questions with very little detail on here.

**akz786** · 3 April 2013, 14:21

Originally posted by northernladuk View Post

Have you spoken to your accountant about this? He will know your affairs and be able to advise based on that rather than just asking random questions with very little detail on here.

Due to speak to him soon, and sorry don`t agree with you in that it was not a "random question" asked as you put and the previous poster did help in answering my question pretty much in the whole, so obviously there was enough detail there...thank you sir and have a good day yourself!

**northernladuk** · 3 April 2013, 14:28

Originally posted by akz786 View Post

Due to speak to him soon, and sorry don`t agree with you in that it was not a "random question" asked as you put and the previous poster did help in answering my question pretty much in the whole, so obviously there was enough detail there...thank you sir and have a good day yourself!

Well bearing in mind this question is asked almost weekly you could have done a search to find what you wanted. Your accountant is still your first port of call. He will have his own opinion on this situation...

Try the link below to see how many times this has been asked.
wife shareholder site:contractoruk.com - Google Search

**TheFaQQer** · 3 April 2013, 14:37

Originally posted by akz786 View Post

Been reading through various threads on this forum and seems viable now for me to appoint my wife as a secretary and perhaps even a shareholder as I have 3 different clients and have slightly fallen back on the paperwork/admin side at time (been going at it alone for 4 years).

So appointing her as a Secretary - easy as updating form on Companies House register, then I can pay her a minimum salary?

To employ someone as a secretary (or any other job role for that matter), you need to hire them as an employee and put them on the payroll. Salary should really be commensurate with the work that they are doing - this is particularly important when employing family members, to avoid HMRC classing their income as your own.

You would need to add them to your payroll and ensure that any PAYE and NI due is deducted correctly from their salary.

**Wanderer** · 3 April 2013, 23:01

Originally posted by akz786 View Post

So appointing her as a Secretary - easy as updating form on Companies House register, then I can pay her a minimum salary?

She doesn't need to be appointed as a secretary, just make her a shareholder and she can be paid dividends. You can also pay a salary too but you will need an explanation of what she does for the company if it gets questioned by HMRC.

If she has no other income then you should do a 50/50 share split (or perhaps 51/49 if you want to retain control of your company).

If she does have other income then get professional advice about the right share split based on her income because it's complicated and it will get more complicated if you push her into being a higher rate tax payer with your dividend payments.....

**Martin at NixonWilliams** · 4 April 2013, 08:33

Originally posted by Wanderer View Post

She doesn't need to be appointed as a secretary, just make her a shareholder and she can be paid dividends. You can also pay a salary too but you will need an explanation of what she does for the company if it gets questioned by HMRC.

If she has no other income then you should do a 50/50 share split (or perhaps 51/49 if you want to retain control of your company).

If she does have other income then get professional advice about the right share split based on her income because it's complicated and it will get more complicated if you push her into being a higher rate tax payer with your dividend payments.....

Hi Wanderer,

When gifting shares to a spouse it can be advantageous to appoint them as a secretary if possible (i.e. they should actually be performing a secretarial role).

The reason for this is because the shareholder must have been an officer of the company in order to be eligibile for entrepreneurs relief on winding up of the company.

The other criteria is that the shareholder must hold more than 5% of the shares and the company must have been a trading company for the preceding 12 months.

Martin

**Wanderer** · 5 April 2013, 00:48

Originally posted by Martin at NixonWilliams View Post

When gifting shares to a spouse it can be advantageous to appoint them as a secretary if possible (i.e. they should actually be performing a secretarial role).

The reason for this is because the shareholder must have been an officer of the company in order to be eligibile for entrepreneurs relief on winding up of the company.

The other criteria is that the shareholder must hold more than 5% of the shares and the company must have been a trading company for the preceding 12 months.

Martin

Very good points, Martin. Thanks for setting the record straight on that one!

Spouse as Secretary & Shareholder