small handyman business

MarcoM

Hi,

I would like to start a small handyman business to increment my current earnings. Will keep my day to day job.

I have a couple of questions:

1) is it worth setting up as a ltd company? I know about accounts etc etc as i have been a director for a flat management company before.

2) Can i pay my tax and ni contributions separately from those of my day to day job?

3) What is the best way of creating a simple one page website?

Many thanks

Horace

You could set up as a sole trader initially.

You pay tax on your profits and pay Class 2 NI - these you pay separately from what you earn in your day job, however, all details need to be put on your Self Assessment including details from your P60.

For a website, you could have a facebook page instead - it is quite easy to do on facebook and is free.

Snakeeyes21

Althought there are benefits to setting up a limited company, they will be very small
if its a small company, if you use your personal allowance in your main job you
can pay yourself solely by dividends from the company, this will be an instant saving
of your NI contributions.. you will only pay the 21% corporations tax on any profits,
and providing your dividends dont take you in to higher rate income tax territory they
they wont be taxed any further, if your are capable of doing the extra paperwork yourself
and filing accounts etc then its a good idea to go the ltd company route, just for the saving
that you make on the NI, and the fact that you will be protected personally if you stuff up
a job and things go horribly wrong, if you need an accoutant to do the paperwork then the
financial benefits in having a ltd company for a small business are washed away due to
the accounts fees.. but again you will still have limited liability, which can be a huge factor
for some business, regardless of any financial benefits.

Regarding tax and NI, do it right and none will be payable, over corporations tax, you will just
need to declare your dividends on your self assessment forms.

Websie etc, you can get a free .co.uk domain from Get british business online www.gbbo.co.uk
you will just need a bit of hosting space if you want more control over what kind of website you need.

I would recommmend www.zyma.com for such a small site, mainly because its cheap at £4.95 a year.

You will just need to change the nameservers in the gbbo / yola settings, I can help you do this if
you cant figure out what to do, just send me a pm.

zyma has a web building software included, so getting a basic site up wont be a problem,
if you go for that option.

But as always stated on this forum always get advice from an accoutant about which route to go down.
most offer an 1 or 2 hour session, even if you dont ultimately go with them...

Mr_futuristic

you can make a free website using various sites such as webs.com, wix.com, yola.com or vistaprint.co.uk