Why UK Ltd Companies Are A Bad Idea
UK Ltd companies are a bad idea today and getting worse.
What Are UK Ltd Companies
Many small-to-medium businesses, as well as freelancers, operate in the UK through a company structure called a UK Limited company.
Unless you have a client that insists on only operating through invoicing from a UK Ltd company it’s better to avoid it though.
Insistent clients or VAT reclaims are probably the only good reasons to run a UK Ltd today. And even if you do, it’s probably best to recharge all profits to an overseas company.
The era where UK Ltd was a good idea is coming to an end. Here’s why:
High Corporation Taxes
UK limited companies have recently had a corporation tax rate rise from 19% to 25% under the “right-wing” Conservatives, the supposedly lower tax party, making them a little expensive by international tax standards.
By comparison companies in Ireland next door have a 12.5% corporation tax rate. Dubai companies pay 9% corporation tax.
That means paying 12.5% – 16% extra corporation tax for no good reason.
It Publicly Exposes Your Finances
UK Ltd companies expose the company financials on the Companies House website including the capital in the company and the difference from the previous year, essentially the net profits.
This is insanity.
Imagine if the law required your pay slip to be published on the internet for everybody to look up.
This is essentially the state of affairs for UK Ltd companies.
Never Split Shares with Your Spouse or Girlfriend
You won’t be able to get those shares back, and if she does sign them back over to you she will later say she was “coerced” into doing so and can file a huge legal claim against you several years later.
She will likely file a police complaint to strengthen her case ahead of this under Coercive Control laws recently introduced in the UK which are severely biased in favor of women.
You will then be losing tens of thousands of pounds on both criminal defense lawyers and commercial civil litigation lawyers, far exceeding any tax savings you might have gotten by using her tax allowance.
Like with marriage, the liability is far, far higher and more severe than any modest benefits.
Women Can See & Attack Your Company Profits for Child Support or Alimony Payments
Once your exes know you have any UK business they can look you up on Companies House website in literally a minute, find all the UK Ltd companies you own, and then see the financial year end accounts for the last several years of each company.
Armed with this information, they can then make large claims for Child Support via the aggressive government Child Maintenance Service to use your company profits instead of your salary/dividends as the basis to calculate a higher amount of child support.
Child Support in the UK is now a percentage of your gross income instead of net income. Feminists make the laws ever worse.
This forces you to withdraw money at the highest tax brackets in the UK to pay your ex the profits. Under normal accounting best practice you would usually avoid withdrawing everything and getting slaughtered on tax (you’d leave the money to accrue and withdraw it as a capital gain later as it’s taxed at less than half the rate).
They can also take this proof in hand of the assets available to you and the profits per year over the last several years to take you to court for even more.
They can drag you through courts for Alimony or Child Support claims even higher than what the Child Maintenance Service would allocate (around £2100 / $2500 per month) with the judge having unilateral power over your entire finances current and future – essentially being divorce raped.
Ex-wives / ex-girlfriends can watch your UK Ltd finances online, and when you start to become successful and make more money, they can take you back to court at any time to ask the judge to give her more of it.
Gold diggers who you are dating you can also look up your company worth and capital (cash or assets).
All in all you are very exposed if you have a UK Ltd company.
Criminal Prosecution of Company Directors as well as Claiming Higher Child Support
In late 2022 a £100k a year businessman has been criminally prosecuted for not disclosing his UK Ltd profits as income for purposes of higher child support payments:
It Gets Worse – New More Aggressive Child Support Laws Incoming in 2023 Against Businesses
New stronger laws Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 and The Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023 have been introduced to accelerate charging fathers more:
“legislate to ensure unearned income, such as savings, investment, dividend and property income, is taken into account automatically when the maintenance calculation is made”
“to impose tougher sanctions … such as forcing the sale of property and taking away passports and driving licences”
The Alternative – Offshore Companies
Offshore companies are almost certainly the way forward from a tax and privacy perspective – such as those in Ireland or Dubai.
You can pick your jurisdiction based on the tax rates and features of the country.
Conclusion
The UK, like the USA, is one the most aggressive feminist states and one of the absolute worst places in the world to have children as a man.
Running a UK Ltd exposes you to ever higher financial liabilities both in taxes and payments to exes in the form of alimony or child support.
Even owning property in the UK puts you at greater risk – if you rent it out you owe your exes 20% of that gross rental income before income taxe to the government, and if wrapped in trusts it gets even worse. Lawyers are now applying “notional incomes” to trusts as though you received the use of a property at full rental rates and classifying that as cash income and charging you that amount of money – which you don’t physically have. See the Divorce Corp documentary.
If you can avoid having kids with any woman who has rights to live in the USA or UK you would be well advised to.
Not running a UK Ltd seems to be the future, and even emigrating is something many successful people are doing from the UK right now.