It's fairly common for someone forming a 'one-person' company to pay themselves a salary at a level below which any national insurance is due (£7,072/year in 2011/12) and then pay any additional amounts as dividends. Depending on you and your spouse's particular circumstances, you may want her to be a shareholder in the company.
I would suggest that you need to talk to an accountant so that they can run through the options available to you and their tax and commercial implications.
-- Edited by Robert Pearce on Thursday 22nd of March 2012 02:10:46 PM
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Pearce & Co - Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser
I'm new to this forum and I'm thinking about opening up a bookkeeping business. I like the idea of opening up a limited company, however, the only problem is that as a director I wouldn't be able to act as self employed and charge the company, I believe that HMRC frowns on this.
In your experience would I be able to have my spouse create a limited bookkeeping company and I could then, in turn, bill the company and preserve my self employed status and maitain limited liability?
It's a bit of "cake and eat it" senario, but I really don't want to pay Employers NI but I would prefer to have the protection of limited liability.
