If your register a company with company house do you automatically become

theone999

If your register a company with company house do you automatically become self-employed even if the company is "inactive" and have to do a tax assesement return yourself with HMRC in Janurary?

Basically me and my friend want to set up a business, which will be registered in my name and we want to just register it to get the name we want, then we can design a website for it.

But the company isn't going to really have any business for quite a few months, well after January.

I've never done a tax return before because I've always been employed/unemployed.

slink85

you won't become self employed in any case, you'll become an employee of the 'company' even as a director youre still an employee and the company pays you using the PAYE system / dividends or a mix of both depending on your personal tax situation.

the 'company' even if its just you and another acting as directors, will need to register for PAYE, simple to do online, you then enrol yourself on your paye system / software, and pay yourself accordingly.

Technically you don't even have to register for self assessment if your sole income is via the company, and you pay yourself via a salary / dividends, as essentially the 'company' is handing your tax affairs, just as they would a usual employee who only works at that one place.

But as a lot of people have incomes from other sources etc then registering for self assessment if painless and filling one in is easy.

theone999

slink85 wrote: »

you won't become self employed in any case, you'll become an employee of the 'company' even as a director youre still an employee and the company pays you using the PAYE system / dividends or a mix of both depending on your personal tax situation.

the 'company' even if its just you and another acting as directors, will need to register for PAYE, simple to do online, you then enrol yourself on your paye system / software, and pay yourself accordingly.

Technically you don't even have to register for self assessment if your sole income is via the company, and you pay yourself via a salary / dividends, as essentially the 'company' is handing your tax affairs, just as they would a usual employee who only works at that one place.

But as a lot of people have incomes from other sources etc then registering for self assessment if painless and filling one in is easy.

Um, the company is just going to have 1 person in it, ie me. I'm not going to be paid from it for the foreseeable future.

Do I understand right that if I don't get any money from a company I register, I don't have to do anything extra? (I already have job, where employer does the tax for me, no other source of income)

This registering of company is purely as a shell purpose, to have it ready just in case. Money may never come of it it, it's just that to register it's not too expensive?

arcon5

What's the point?
It means when you trade you are already nearly at a point where annual returns etc have to be submitted which I'm guessing you don't have the skills to do without an accountant


a company name and trading name are not the same thing. A company registered as 'abc Ltd' doesn't secure 'abc'. Costa coffee for example is a trading name owned by Whitbread plc

makeyourdaddyproud

As soon as you register a company with CH, they will notify the Tax Office and you will shortly receive a pack where you will need to register any employees.

There used to be a 'NICs and Tax' payment book which you will have to complete every month, you will be expected to submit 1 slip per month with a zero balance even if there are no employees.

You will also receive an annual return to complete every year with which you will have to supply audited accounts and a fee - there is exemption for audit if you earn less than a threshold but you will need to supply P&L and BS at the very minimum.

If you look on the net I'm sure there will be a short form accounts template you could use with your annual return.

Prior to registering the company check a whois database for the domain names you require. It's not uncommon for cyberquatters to take names only when a new company is registered. I would go for .com and .co.uk despite all the new TLDs out there.

On the subject of self assessment, I would definately register anyway; the early days of your company might see erratic earnings which would see tax due from your payroll but still not enough to use up all of your personal allowance. The SE affords you the chance to specify all your "below personal allowance" earnings and tax paid, which will be refunded automatically.

A company cannot be registered by just one person, there has to be two citizens (or entities?), usually director and secretary.

You will also need a witness of sound professional standing to incorporate, an accountant can do this and supply you with Memorandum and Articles of Association too.

Mersey_2

As others have suggested, far more important that you secure ie register the website name(s) domains. If you manage to trade at all before the end of the tax year, you could always be a sole trader anyway eg Mr A B t/a ABC Law and then register and file a s/e tax return following that.

Latazza

makeyourdaddyproud wrote: »

A company cannot be registered by just one person, there has to be two citizens (or entities?), usually director and secretary.

Yes you can register it with one person and a sole director., your knowledge is at least 6 years out of date

marlot

theone999 wrote: »

If your register a company with company house do you automatically become self-employed ...

You want a 'dormant' company - ie one which is registered but not trading. You register as normal, but at the end of the year file a the annual returns using the specific dormant company proforma.

Note that you ARE signing up to doing annual returns. And there can be fines for not doing them, as well as charges for the filing of the returns.

You will get contacted by HMRC, to see if you owe any tax, or likely to.

General_Grant

Latazza wrote: »

Yes you can register it with one person and a sole director., your knowledge is at least 6 years out of date

Yes - the effective date was 1 October 2009.