Multiple companies?

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

Quite right, The Puma. Had a brain block there. Sorry.

You'd need to consider whether the Plan B turnover would push yuo beyond the Flat Rate Scheme threshold as well.

[THEPUMA]

If Plan B is going to be hugely profitable, then combining both in the one company could push you up into higher Corp Tax rates.

This is wrong. If you set up a newco, controlled by the same parties as oldco (which is the only conclusion you can draw from the OP), then the threshold at which the higher rate of corporation tax becomes payable is halved. So by setting up a second company you are more likely to pay more tax.

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

IR35 relates to the contract you work on so there would be no impact here.

Tax can be affected positively or negatively if you put your plan b through your ltd co: If Plan B is loss generating then these losses can be set against consultancy profits so reducing the tax bill. If Plan B is going to be hugely profitable, then combining both in the one company could push you up into higher Corp Tax rates.

The most compelling reason, imo, for the use of a separate ltd co would be liability: Using two companies would effectively ring fence the assets of the individual businesses keeping them safe if the other fails.

[themistry]

This has been discussed before, and I think it was agreed that from a financial perspective there is no difference, althought you might have minor gains in single accountancy fees etc.

However, from a legal perspective, I would certainly keep Plan B seperate, so that any actions done as part of it (or your Co Ltd) do not affect one and other. Imagine Your Co is sued for example, do you want to take Plan B down with it? And should you wish to close Your CO to concentrate on Plan B, it makes things "cleaner" but thats only if you are a tidy person



TM

[d000hg]

If you wanted to work on your Plan B while still doing your normal work, is there a good reason to create a separate company for this? If your plan B was somewhat related to IT then would it make more sense to operate out of your existing Ltd? Are there tax/IR35 issues?