My approach was exactly the same as yours and proportionally I paid roughly (within 2-3%) as much tax as I would if I had earned the same amount as a full time employee. About the only thing you are 'dodging' with a low salary as a Director of a Ltd. company and dividends is NIC contributions, which would likely be in the order of £2-3000/year.
The main advantages as I saw them to contacting were:
- day rate roughly twice what I would have earned salary
- honest, mercenary working relationship
What do I mean by funny business? I worked in the City of London for a decade, contracting at some fantastic places and with some great colleagues. I would say I was literally the only person I know (of say, 20 colleagues who's affairs I was aware of) who paid tax the entire time. Most never paid any.
An absolute majority of my colleagues entered into the following arrangement, which will be completely familiar to anyone who worked as a contractor in the UK finance sector between 2000/2010:
1. Invoice via an umbrella company which is based offshore
2. Umbrella preferably based inside Europe outside the EU, Northern Cyprus was very common
3. Umbrella company is owned by a trust
4. As a beneficiary of the trust you will be paid a 'loan' roughly every six weeks, since that's not a salary, right?
5. Loans are not taxable.
6. HMRC completely, totally aware of these arrangements.
7. Figure it out, everyone not on PAYE was in on it.
Via this arrangement you can often get 85%+ of your date rate returned to you as 'loans'. I know people who were on these schemes for a decade and dodged in the hundreds of thousands of pounds in personal income tax.
HMRC has sent letters offering to settle cases with 16,000 people, of the people I know I assume they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar for a couple of years, but overall are supremely better off for never having paid tax for the most productive times of their lives.
These are people who often came through state education, drive on state roads, use public services, in the UK which has a rich left/socialist history and have absolutely compunction whatsoever in shirking all and every responsibility they have to contribute in any way.
And as some people in this thread comment - "well, if I wanted to I could write a check to a charity". I heard that so many times from colleagues who had children at local schools, born in the NHS, earning £150k a year, for ten years, who had never pay a cent in tax.
Enjoy being poor plebs, tax is optional. I chose to pay mine.
In the end, some of these people are still my closest friends, we just have very different principles.
I'm relatively wealth in my peer group (disregarding the non-tax-payers who I'm clearly behind). I could be wealthier, but I'm not a fucking parasite.