Re: Starting a limited company, while in other employment

I think for a limited company you will have fixed costs regardless of whether or not you make money or pay yourself a wage; you will have to make up full annual accounts, make an annual return to Companies House, pay Corporation Tax on profits (or at least account for them), and probably a few other things. If you have to get an accountant to do this it could get expensive if you're not actually bringing money into the company. Maybe rethink as to whether limited company status is really required.

Small companies can now make up their own accounts I believe.

I know they *can*, but they're not allowed to. All the info they provide has to be true, not made up.

All directors are employees whether they receive income from the company or not.

Peter Saxton from London snipped-for-privacy@petersaxton.co.uk

This has been discussed several times in the past. Directors without service contracts may just be office holders - so items like Employers Liability insurance may not be required.

Agreed. I realised this was a bit of a minefield and I should have explained it. I was thinking of employee from the point of view of PAYE & NIC. The strange thing is that if you set up a payroll scheme you should include all directors in your year end annual return P35 but presumably no return is need for non-salaried directors if there are no other employees.

Peter Saxton from London snipped-for-privacy@petersaxton.co.uk

This is the situation I am in. I am a non-salaried director and only employee and I still have to send in quarterly returns with nil on them.

Directors (even non salaried) have to appear on the P35 - marked with an asterisk - if tax or NI has been deducted.

So Blue is ok then.

He doesnt receive any income from the company. If there's no other "employees" then he doesnt even need a payroll scheme or submit a P35.

Peter Saxton from London snipped-for-privacy@petersaxton.co.uk

No, that is incorrect.

However, any director who is paid must have payments made through the PAYE system unless it is an annual dividend on shares.

In message of Sat, 19 Jul 2003, Bob Brenchley. writes

Quite so. They can be officers, in which case they are not subject to the National Minimum Wage.

DF