Annual cost of Ltd Company?

BellyButtonFluff

Can anyone enlighten me what the approximate costs are on an annual basis are of having a limited company and what the admin burden is (eg quarterly returns?) I understand there are startup costs too.

I'm planning to leave my current job in the near future and there is a very strong chance I will go self employed, and this may happen very quickly and I would like to be ready for it.

But until that time the company would effectively be dormant.

For various reasons I would prefer to separate the income (nothing dodgy I promise!) and combine it with some other modest income streams and occasional bits of work I do. I don't think these would hit the VAT threshold £73K in the next few years.

I'm in Scotland too, I know that sometimes makes a difference, and the industry I am in is IT/Computing.

InsideInsurance

The cost of registering a company is circa £30 and there are no annual fees.

Returns are annual, VAT, PAYE etc are quarterly. You can in theory do it all yourself but they are more complex than the likes of self assessment personal tax returns and the penalties for getting wrong can be greater. An accountant would generally be able to do this for you and assuming you employ them on a basic level and provide data in an acceptable format (ie not a box of receipts) then you'll be looking at an annual fee from them of £600-£1500 depending on where you live etc.

If you are looking at doing contracting then certainly get an accountant that specialises in this area so they can give you reliable advice on IR35

anamenottaken

InsideInsurance wrote: »

The cost of registering a company is circa £30 and there are no annual fees.

Incorporation costs £40 max (if you do it yourself).

Annual reporting with Companies House costs £40 max/year (again if you do it yourself). Can be as low as £14/year.

Acc72

BellyButtonFluff wrote: »

and the industry I am in is IT/Computing.

You need to see an accountant to go through IR35 requirements (do a google search).

This is assuming that you are an IT contractor and the business is not to buy something, make it into something else and then sell it type of thing ?