Ltd Retained Profit into Pensions or Ltd BTL or Stock market

[BoneroGG]

Hello all,
Hope this message will find you well.
I have a bit of cash retained in my ltd company from years when I have been contracting outside IR35. I am now, like many like consultants, still contracting but through an umbrella company.
What are the possibilities of putting this cash to good use, without taking it out of the Ltd and incur a dividend tax?
I thought about a couple of things:

1. investing it in real estate by creating a Limited BTL company
2. Contributing it toward my pension pot and grow it in a proper tax wrapper.
3. Grow the cash (still within the ltd) by investing in stock and shares: currently, I just invested it in a riskless Money Market fund on where I am earning around 5% pa. Can I buy stock & shares too with this cash?

Any advice, suggestion, or warnings and pros and cons of each option will be welcomed?

Many thanks

[malvolio]

The safe option is to put it into a properly managed pension fund where it can grow until it's needed. BTL and especially switching to a pure investment company, have difficult CT and CGT issues to resolve. Rather than asking a bunch of unqualified amateurs, talk to a fully qualified Wealth Manager and see what they say.

[Maslins]

Disclosure - I may be deemed biased, but...

...worth you considering an MVL. This involves closing your company, but typically with you getting final funds out subject to capital gains tax, rather than dividend tax rates. Often meaning ~10%. Be warned this tax break would be clawed back if you were to set up another contracting/consulting company within 2 years.

The money's then in your personal hands to do as you see fit, which could well involve investing in one of the methods you mention.

[wattaj]

Disclosure - I may be deemed biased, but...

...worth you considering an MVL. This involves closing your company, but typically with you getting final funds out subject to capital gains tax, rather than dividend tax rates. Often meaning ~10%. Be warned this tax break would be clawed back if you were to set up another contracting/consulting company within 2 years.

The money's then in your personal hands to do as you see fit, which could well involve investing in one of the methods you mention.

Could someone remind me, and anyone else who happens by, how the 2 years rule would operate if one were to take an umbrella contract having closed one's LtdCo.?
Not fussed for me for the time being, but I am keen to know the options around such edge cases.
Ta.

[northernladuk]

Could someone remind me, and anyone else who happens by, how the 2 years rule would operate if one were to take an umbrella contract having closed one's LtdCo.?
Not fussed for me for the time being, but I am keen to know the options around such edge cases.
Ta.

Umbrella is just a perm job so makes no difference vs a normal perm job. There was some discussion around 'carrying on in same trade' which was a bit of grey area but I don't think anything came of it.

Don't be hasty to close just because you are umbrella. Hundreds of people did that when the changes hit without considering the longer term future. Only three months after it hit we started getting people that fell foul of this after MVL'ing when they went brolly and got an outside gig 3 months later. 21 more months brolly for you. Very expensive.