Can salary be put on hold?

[Craig@Clarity]

I usually pay myself monthly through my limited company, but if I want to start an employed job (nothing to do with the company) can I put my company salary on hold? (I just want enough money to live and don't want to go over the threshold and pay more tax with the two salaries combined). And what's the procedure? Do I need to notify HMRC in some way?

I did a search on Google but not really getting what I want.

Thanks

Yes you can. Produce a P45 for your new employer when they ask for one and when you file your next RTI, HMRC will pick it up from there and file an EPS each month from your company when you don't have a salary or employees. Nice and straight forward.

[ladymuck]

There's a handy option in Sage One Payroll where you tick a box marked 'do not pay' when you're processing the pay run. It then completes as normal and send off all the bits and pieces. I would expect all payroll software to have the same facility.

You have to do your usual RTI to HMRC but it becomes a nil return to inform them that you just haven't forgotten to do the payroll for the month.

[NotAllThere]

Ask your limited company's HR department. If they don't have one, ask the CEO. If they don't have one, appoint an unpaid CEO for a day, ask him if you can do this. If he says no fire him and appoint someone else. If you can't find anyone who as CEO will work for free and do your bidding, as a last resort, appoint yourself as the janitor in the HR department and forge a response from the head of HR saying it is fine. Then, resign as janitor before your company's security department finds out what you've done. Or appoint yourself head of security and squelch the investigation. But whatever you do, don't pay yourself a janitor's salary or an HR head salary or a CEO salary, that would just make things worse.

Let me translate that for you. "Yes, you can".

[WordIsBond]

I usually pay myself monthly through my limited company, but if I want to start an employed job (nothing to do with the company) can I put my company salary on hold?

Ask your limited company's HR department. If they don't have one, ask the CEO. If they don't have one, appoint an unpaid CEO for a day, ask him if you can do this. If he says no fire him and appoint someone else. If you can't find anyone who as CEO will work for free and do your bidding, as a last resort, appoint yourself as the janitor in the HR department and forge a response from the head of HR saying it is fine. Then, resign as janitor before your company's security department finds out what you've done. Or appoint yourself head of security and squelch the investigation. But whatever you do, don't pay yourself a janitor's salary or an HR head salary or a CEO salary, that would just make things worse.

[NotAllThere]

It's not that hard to run a ltd co by yourself and handle all the accounts and statutory filings yourself. Where people fall down is when they're not diligent enough or not fiscally aware. But not having an accountant is not, per se, a terribly stupid thing if you know what you're doing. Knowing what you are doing does not include being able to answer every question an accountant could answer. I started contracting with an accountant. After a few years, my wife and I started doing the accounts ourselves using Excel - primarily so we could have visibility of the financial status of our company more easily. Plenty of small businesses do not have an accountant and do fine.

Having an accountant so that you've evidence that IR35 doesn't apply, is the IR35 tail waving the business dog.

OP - it's a good idea to have an accountant on hand who's aware of your company dealings, of whom you can ask questions, and pay them on a time and materials basis. It will probably save you money in the long term, and may prevent costly mistakes.

My accountant does my year end accounts and is available to answer queries - but that's all he does. The book-keeping and filing (employee, tax and VAT returns etc.) we do ourselves. Nowadays we use accountancy software rather than Excel!

[Crossroads]

I haven't got an accountant. An accountant is a complete waste of money for what I'm doing.

MTD=Making Terrible Decisions?

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[simes]

Yes you can stop paying....

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I concur.

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[Old Greg]

I haven't got an accountant. An accountant is a complete waste of money for what I'm doing.

Sounds like you're good to go then. Best of luck.

[MrButton]

Can salary be put on hold?

I haven't got an accountant. An accountant is a complete waste of money for what I'm doing.

I wouldn’t tell HMRC as they may opt you into IR35.

They might also backdate the 24 month rule which would make your substitution clause irrelevant.

[SuperLooper]

I haven't got an accountant. An accountant is a complete waste of money for what I'm doing.

And yet what you're doing is asking really basic questions about how limited companies work...

[nigelnoggins]

I haven't got an accountant. An accountant is a complete waste of money for what I'm doing.

[Crossroads]

What does your accountant say?

Yes you can stop paying....

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[northernladuk]

I usually pay myself monthly through my limited company, but if I want to start an employed job (nothing to do with the company) can I put my company salary on hold? (I just want enough money to live and don't want to go over the threshold and pay more tax with the two salaries combined). And what's the procedure? Do I need to notify HMRC in some way?

I did a search on Google but not really getting what I want.

Thanks

Of course you can. You are the director, you can do what you want.

Your accountant should be the first stop for questions like this and they are the ones that will sort it for you. You have an accountant right?

Also rather than just google generall you can search just the forums.

Go to google and type in 'salary on hold site:forums.contractoruk.com' and it will return all the threads on here about this. That exact search came back with some slightly different threads but should tell you enough to know you can do what you want. Try tweaking the search words to get more accurate results.

[nigelnoggins]

I usually pay myself monthly through my limited company, but if I want to start an employed job (nothing to do with the company) can I put my company salary on hold? (I just want enough money to live and don't want to go over the threshold and pay more tax with the two salaries combined). And what's the procedure? Do I need to notify HMRC in some way?

I did a search on Google but not really getting what I want.

Thanks