Planning your profit extraction

Newsletter issue – March 2023

In his Autumn statement in November 2022 Chancellor Hunt announced cuts to the dividend allowance and the additional tax rate threshold, where individuals start to pay tax at 45%. You need to take these changes into account when planning how and when to extract profits from your company.

Many family companies spread the shareholding over various family members to take advantage of the dividend allowance which allows an individual to receive up to £2,000 of dividends tax free in a tax year.

This dividend allowance will be halved from £2,000 to £1,000 on 6 April 2023, and halved again to £500 on 6 April 2024. Anyone who receives dividends in excess of the dividend allowance needs to report that income to HMRC, so the tax due can either be deducted through their PAYE code, or by way of a self-assessment tax return.

Dividend income is treated as falling into the taxpayer‘s highest tax band where it is taxed at these rates in 2022/23:

  • Basic Rate band: 8.75% (other income taxed at 20%)
  • Higher rate band: 33.75% (other income tax at 40%)
  • Additional rate band: 39.35% (other income taxed at 45%)

These dividend tax rates were increased on 6 April 2022, and they could be increased again in the Spring Budget in March this year.

There are other ways of extracting profit from your company, for example as rent, interest, or pension contributions. The first two methods require the shareholder to have lent property or funds to the company, so are difficult to arrange at short notice.

Pension contributions can be paid by the company on behalf of any employee or director, as long as the total remuneration package for that person is reasonable for the work they perform. Employer contributions are currently very tax efficient as they are tax deductible for the company and don‘t carry NIC.

However, you need to ensure that you don‘t exceed your pension annual allowance (generally £40,000) and lifetime allowance (frozen at £1,073,100 for the last three years). Please talk to your financial adviser before deciding whether to pay more or less into your pension fund.

The additional rate threshold is reduced from £150,000 to £125,140 on 6 April 2023, which is worth noting if your income is in this range.

What our clients say about us...

  • "Paul has provided accountancy services to my company for 2 years now. I can recommend Paul very highly; his skills as an accountant are highly detailed and professional and he is always available to provide advice. One aspect of the way Paul works that I greatly appreciate is a preference to meet face to face when there is a detailed conversation to be had. I personally find this more productive and is a benefit of working with a small accountancy firm that you wouldn't get with the large faceless providers."

    ALISTAIR FAIRWEATHER - PROGRAMME & PROJECT MANAGER, DELIVERING/RESCUING I.T. 7 BUSINESS CHANGE WITH BUDGETS UPTO £50M INC SUPPIER MANAGEMENT

  • "I couldn't ask for more from Paul as an Accountant. Paul has been accountant to Work Relief Charity Recruitment for just over a year now and is proving an invaluable asset. Accurate, knowledgeable, flexible with an emphasis on service delivery, I would recommend Paul's services to any organisation looking for an accounts professional."

    Neil Price - Managing Director at Work Relief Charity Recruitment

  • "Paul was a referral from a family member when I started my business 2 years ago. As this was the first time I had ever run my own company I was totally clueless over the financial side of matters and was worried that I may have made mistakes in any of my accounting. I needn't have worried as after enaging Paul for a set monthly fee he was always there on the end of the phone for all sorts of questions I had and no matter how trivial they were Paul gave me all the information I required and more and did an excellent and painless job at the end of my first year! Couldn't ask for any better to be honest. Just two words - hire him!!!"

    Lee Westrap MBCS - Director - Bulldog IT Services

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Booth & Co  |   The Hermitage  |   15a Shenfield Road  |   Brentwood  |   Essex  |   CM15 8AG        Telephone: 01277 224666    |   Email: info@boothandco.co.uk