Showing posts with label mvl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mvl. Show all posts

Thursday, March 31, 2016

New clampdown on capital treatment of distributions

Starting April 6th next month, a new targeted anti-avoidance rule (TAAR) will make it more difficult to convert profits generated in a company into a capital receipt in the hands of the shareholders. Indeed, a capital distribution made in the winding-up of a company will be taxed as income if either within two years of the winding-up the shareholder continues to be involved in the same trade as that carried out by the company that has been wound-up or if profits, in excess of those required by the company, were retained in the company so that they could be received as capital on a later liquidation.

These new measures only apply to individual shareholders and close companies (broadly, companies controlled by five or fewer people) but it represents a significant tax increase where the shareholder was able to claim Entrepreneur's Relief on the gain (a jump from 10% to 38.1% if dividends are falling within the additional rate band).

More specifically, the anti-avoidance is targeted after the following behaviours:

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Closing down a company: step by step

Where a company can meet its financial obligations, the process of closure, though complex, is reasonably straightforward.Once you have chosen the date on which you wish your company to cease trading, you should not process any more transactions other than those required by the closure process. Then ensure that all creditors have been paid in full. If the company cannot pay them, they need to be notified.

You will need to notify HMRC of your intention to cease trading as early as you can, though it is worth holding off submitting your final accounts for a few weeks or months to ensure that any late-occurring expenses can be included. If you are VAT registered, you will need to cancel your registration. You will also need to run a final payroll to obtain P45s for yourself and any staff you employ, as well as submitting a P35 Employer Annual Return and paying any outstanding PAYE and/or NICs. More details on all these requirements can be found on the HMRC website.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Closing down a solvent business

When you close down your company, and if there are significant reserves left, you would have been able in the past to to apply for the Extra-Statutory Concession (ESC) C16 with the HMRC and get the distribution taxed as capital instead of income. This would have carried significant tax advantages if you are a higher rate taxpayer since dividends are taxed at 25% or more in that case whereas capital treatment would have potentially allowed access to CGT Entrepreneurs Relief with a tax rate of just 10%.