Opening New Ltd Co's due to expansion

E30Tom

I operate within the automotive industry and looking to expand into other avenues. If anyone can provide advice, it would be gratefully received. 

I currently buy, restore and sell my own classic cars, however, if I was to offer services such as the following, would I be able to run them as their own limited co, independent from each other:

Workshop servicing customers vehicles. 

Detailing/car cleaning.

Vehicle transportation. 

Vehicle dealership to sell clients cars on consignment. 

Whilst all fall within the automotive industry, they are all quite differing sectors. I would also, continue with my existing business of buying and selling my own cars. I have spoken with HMRC on several occasions, but have been unable to have them confirm if they will view them as all on company for tax purposes or not. 

Thanks

MeteredOut

This is the sort of advice you should be paying for, as getting it wrong will fall on you, not some random person on the internet.

What's the reason for wanting to keep the separate, with the additional costs that will incur? VAT and the rumours around it decreasing? 

Will all business operate from the same premises? Could the businesses serve the same customers?

If there's no clear reason to separate the business other than for tax purposes, I suspect HMRC might consider this disaggregation/artificial separation and treat them as a single entity.

I very much doubt you'll get HMRC to confirm one way or the other - its up to you and your advisors to decide.

But if you do want to go down this path, have you looked at whether there are different SICs for each service you list above?

MyRealNameToo

E30Tom said:

I operate within the automotive industry and looking to expand into other avenues. If anyone can provide advice, it would be gratefully received. 

I currently buy, restore and sell my own classic cars, however, if I was to offer services such as the following, would I be able to run them as their own limited co, independent from each other:

Workshop servicing customers vehicles. 

Detailing/car cleaning.

Vehicle transportation. 

Vehicle dealership to sell clients cars on consignment. 

Whilst all fall within the automotive industry, they are all quite differing sectors. I would also, continue with my existing business of buying and selling my own cars. I have spoken with HMRC on several occasions, but have been unable to have them confirm if they will view them as all on company for tax purposes or not. 

Thanks

You can certainly run them as separate companies if you want to but as you own all of them they will be considered "associated companies" which may mean certain things are looked at across the companies not individually and will mean special considerations were two or more of the companies do business with each other. 

It's certainly one to get proper financial advice on especially as you have posted it in a section about cutting tax rather than thinking of it from a marketing or other perspective. 

MeteredOut

MyRealNameToo said:

E30Tom said:

I operate within the automotive industry and looking to expand into other avenues. If anyone can provide advice, it would be gratefully received. 

I currently buy, restore and sell my own classic cars, however, if I was to offer services such as the following, would I be able to run them as their own limited co, independent from each other:

Workshop servicing customers vehicles. 

Detailing/car cleaning.

Vehicle transportation. 

Vehicle dealership to sell clients cars on consignment. 

Whilst all fall within the automotive industry, they are all quite differing sectors. I would also, continue with my existing business of buying and selling my own cars. I have spoken with HMRC on several occasions, but have been unable to have them confirm if they will view them as all on company for tax purposes or not. 

Thanks

You can certainly run them as separate companies if you want to but as you own all of them they will be considered "associated companies" which may mean certain things are looked at across the companies not individually and will mean special considerations were two or more of the companies do business with each other. 

It's certainly one to get proper financial advice on especially as you have posted it in a section about cutting tax rather than thinking of it from a marketing or other perspective. 

This is why I asked if this was about the reduction in VAT rumours. We need to know the motivation for wanting them as separate companies.

I'm going to stick my neck out and suggest we'll not hear back because it was a cunning ploy to not have to register for VAT.

poseidon1

MeteredOut said:

MyRealNameToo said:

E30Tom said:

I operate within the automotive industry and looking to expand into other avenues. If anyone can provide advice, it would be gratefully received. 

I currently buy, restore and sell my own classic cars, however, if I was to offer services such as the following, would I be able to run them as their own limited co, independent from each other:

Workshop servicing customers vehicles. 

Detailing/car cleaning.

Vehicle transportation. 

Vehicle dealership to sell clients cars on consignment. 

Whilst all fall within the automotive industry, they are all quite differing sectors. I would also, continue with my existing business of buying and selling my own cars. I have spoken with HMRC on several occasions, but have been unable to have them confirm if they will view them as all on company for tax purposes or not. 

Thanks

You can certainly run them as separate companies if you want to but as you own all of them they will be considered "associated companies" which may mean certain things are looked at across the companies not individually and will mean special considerations were two or more of the companies do business with each other. 

It's certainly one to get proper financial advice on especially as you have posted it in a section about cutting tax rather than thinking of it from a marketing or other perspective. 

This is why I asked if this was about the reduction in VAT rumours. We need to know the motivation for wanting them as separate companies.

I'm going to stick my neck out and suggest we'll not hear back because it was a cunning ploy to not have to register for VAT.

That was my take on the question, VAT avoidance.

mlz1413

If you are the only person working for all the companies and you only have one company vehicle to get to each customer I think insuring each company would be complicated. 

If you are running everything from one place then you are one company with different revenue streams.

You need to speak to an accountant but I'm fairly sure all the limited companies would have to be treated as a group,  so no advantage to splitting up.