New business help please

paulwf

davidjwest wrote: »

Out of interest, what would you consider to be an easy choice for a "lifestyle business" is?

If only I knew the answer to that An interesting question, a lot will depend on what levels of skills/qualifications is required.

In a former life nearly all my best clients used to be gardeners...being paid in cash probably has something to do with that though. Same with some market traders I knew, always paying in cash

From my experience of paying for a shop fit out I'd say those guys were on a good income. Flooring, electrician, plumbing...it involves insane hours and seriously hard work plus being away from home but I reckon you could do it 1 or 2 weeks a month if you didn't need too much out of it and were self employed i.e. no one else getting a cut. To be fair the guys I used probably took years to build up their reputation but they must have been on a seriously good wage.

MonkeySaving?

Not the easy choice but a specialised IT consultancy role will do that for you. Work 5 days a month, have the rest off, at £850+ a day you can afford to. Try becoming an ace blogger/writer, in a specialist field, that should see the coins rolling in if you dedicate enough time and effort to it. Obviously depends on whether you want to become a slave to a PC or whether you're a more outdoors type.

Search_2

Reading this thread, I wondered if it is possible to work with someone on a self employed basis without an official partnership agreement? Specifically, are you legally allowed to split work as it comes in, if it comes in!, on an informal basis?

Also, if, eventually, the vat threshold was approached, are you allowed to have the two primary self-employed workers split the turnover, so not being close to the threshold, without being a legal partnership? I have absolutely no worries about trust or anything like that, and it is just freelance work with very limited costs. Just reading this thread made me question if this was allowed? Thanks very much in advance.

jexygirl

I could well be wrong, but as I understood it, there is no VAT on take away, only on eat in - unless it has changed?
Jex

Mrs_Chip

Jexy

Yes there is, it's all covered in Vat Notice 709/1 - in all it's complicated detail! So plan is to stay away from VAT registration if at all possible.

calisto

Sorry for digging this one up - but surely the best way to go is to incorporate. That way you can have 2 shares between you, and then only pay the absolute minimum wage and draw the rest as dividends which do not attract NI.

There is no way on earth all the recent HMRC crap like IR35 will apply as you clearly have no "master" being the front of the business, etc.

Also if you and your partner are both Director and Secretary, then you don't have to pay minimum wage - as you are "Office Holders" in the eyes of the law, and NMW does not apply.

So just pay the bare minimum as salary - The level when NIC kicks in and so gives you all the same benefits as any other employee (unlike Class 4 self employed who get SwFuAll !).

Take the rest as dividends. Of course you have to record a meeting etc to distribute profits, but its just an absurd paper exercise to stop the revenue trying to make it employee tax. :beer:

(Also, Cash based businesses are the best way to stick it "to the man". That and barter, or maybe even Bitcoin! Just can't see Bitcoin working on a chippy van though)