Should Self Employed Folks Use An Umbrella Company?
Posted by admin on April 2nd, 2012If you’re a contractor or pay self employed tax, you might find that you pay substantially more self employed tax than you absolutely have to . By setting up an umbrella company you can simplify the system through which you are remunerated for your time , and write down a good deal of common overheads against tax .
To posit an example, if you were a consultant retained by an advertising company on a self employed basis, you might decide to establish an umbrella company which could then hire you on a full time basis, and be reimbursed for your labour by the firm to which you are contracted. The umbrella company can then pay you as a permanent member of staff rather than as a contractor . Through the umbrella company you could also, and very easily, declare legitimate day to day costs as expenses, which the umbrella company would be able to treat as operating costs, deducting them from the moneys received from the company to which you’re contracted before you are paid, and crucially, before before any sums as to your tax liability are made.
The expenses that the umbrella company could remove from your self employed tax in this fashion might include travel expenses , your wifi at home if you use it for work . You could also have your umbrella company provide you with a business vehicle and smartphone, and to a limited extent these benefits can then be discounted against your taxable income and will ultimately minimise your tax bill.
The advantages of creating an umbrella company
This other person is then remunerated by the umbrella company, rather than paying self employed tax. The cash paid to this other “employee” is actually a part of the salary paid to the contractor by the contracting company, but by dividing this money between two staff members of the umbrella company you can benefit from the untaxed income or “personal allowance” that every UK citizen enjoys, with the first chunk of their income (today it’s the first ?7,475, rising in 2012/13 to ?8,105, with an additional increase included in in the March 2012 budget) going untaxed.