Ltd company address = my home address

danwednesday

Hi,

Does anyone know what the implications are of having my company's registered office as my home address? I'm due to go from sole trader to limited company shortly, but will probably work from home.

Is this permitted? If so, am I due for heaftier council taxes or other taxes? I'm thinking there might even be savings to be made somewhere along the line (compared to running an individual office or renting a mailbox address) but knowing our Chancellor, probably not!

Any poniters would be very much appreciated, thanks...

WHA

Basically, no implications at all of just having the registered office address at your home. That is not a relevant factor.

What really matters for both business rates and capital gains tax on the eventual sale of your home is the scale and type of business activities at your home - the implications are the same whether you are a sole trader or limited company.

If you regularly have employees or customers visiting your home you may well need change of use permission and may be liable for business rates. If a significant area of your home is wholly used for business purposes, that proportion of your home may be liable for capital gains tax on the sale. These points are valid whether you are a sole trader or limited company.

So, basically, if you are continuing to do the same as previously, just changing the legal status, then there should be no impact at all.

One area you do need to think about is the amount of your "use of home" costs you can offset against your business profits. The rules for what proportions of which types of expenses are very different between being a sole trader and being a limited company, so you should ask your accountant what will change and how it will affect your tax.

Murdina

Just as a practical point if you have not a company before they do seem to attract large amounts of junk mail ( I used to open the post for my employer where many such companies were registered). If you were to use your accountants they might be kind enough to bin it for you when they saw they had 50 copies of the same letter.....