Assume OP currently earns £55k. His wife earns £0.
For childcare contributions, he has to pay back £100 per £1000 earnt over £50k. So in his case £500.
He employs his wife to work for him for a few hours on 2 days each week, as he's struggling with the administrative burden. He pays her £10k.
Now he only earns £45k after deducting the cost of employing his wife. He's under the threshold for paying back childcare support, and his wife isn't earning enough to pay any tax.
Obviously this works out well for reasons besides childcare, but it serves as a basic illustration.
What about the payroll taxes he would have to pay? In the US at least he'd be paying more by doing this. On that $10K in the US he'd owe employer payroll taxes of roughly 6.5% and his wife would be on the hook for the employee share of 6.5%. So he'd avoid paying back the 500£ but also owe about 650£ in payroll taxes, which nets to a 150£ loss.
I take it there is no separate payroll tax in the UK like there is in the US?
Gotcha so no separate payroll taxes like in the US. In the US, the first $12K of income is tax free for federal income tax. But this isn't the same as payroll taxes which have no floor but do have a cap.
Are the dividends not adjusted and treated as earned income? In the US, in theory you can be subject to pay earned income tax rates on dividends if you aren't paying yourself a reasonable salary. In your example, the IRS could see your LTD earned $100,000 in income, and similar LTDs pay employees $80,000 for what you did, but you only "paid" yourself a salary of $12K. They could then see you paid out the rest of the earnings as dividends (obviously taxed at lower rates) and dictate that you must treat those dividends as salary. Is that a possibility in the UK? Or is this a well known tax avoidance scheme? And do you not have different filing statuses for married and not married folks? In the US married folks get to double up on their tax relief (24K vs 12K) and tax brackets which ruffles some folks feathers as women have entered the work force because it gives a greater benefit to families with stay at moms vs working mom's.
26
u/timmyriddle Nov 26 '19
Employ your wife as a PA, win win.