This may be less relevant to the topic, can anyone point out how to start a company in India (I am a Indian citizen). Your help is appreciated.
How to register a company in the UK
21–30 of 77 posts
Re: How to register a company in the UK
#22What is the simplest way for citizen of EU member state to create and manage UK Ltd company without ever being to UK or owning anything else there (or renting physical office)?
Re: How to register a company in the UK
#23If you're going to be getting an accountant anyway, many accountants will do the company registration stuff on your behalf for free.
I'd advise against that, because it buffers you from knowing just how simple it is - and gets you in the habit of wasting money getting accountants to do things which you can do yourself in 10 minutes.
Do you know if I can file my own taxes? I keep everything in QuickBooks, and my company isn't really making enough money to justify spending thousands on an accountant. I wonder if I can do my own return, but the HMRC site is not helping.
On the other hand, I wonder if I can just register as a sole trader, invoice my company and enjoy the free tax bracket, as I didn't make more than that last year.
Re: How to register a company in the UK
#24What is the simplest way for citizen of EU member state to create and manage UK Ltd company without ever being to UK or owning anything else there (or renting physical office)?
Whether you can own a UK company with a foreign address I don't know.
I do know many virtual offices can be your registered address. These tend to be companies that receive your mail/phone calls and forward them on to you or let you rent desks or offices for meetings in town/city centres.
For example: http://www.westone-business.com/ or http://www.mwbex.com/page/business-address
NB: Those companies are just some of the first in Google search results, do your own research first I recommend.
Whether they will do it for a EU citizen I do not know. But that should at least give you a hint of where to start looking.
Re: How to register a company in the UK
#25How is the UK better compared to other competitive EU jurisdictions like Ireland, Luxembourg and Cyprus?
Re: How to register a company in the UK
#26What is the simplest way for citizen of EU member state to create and manage UK Ltd company without ever being to UK or owning anything else there (or renting physical office)?
I'm a Greek citizen with a UK company, I created it in ten minutes on companiesmadesimple.com, who also provide mail forwarding services, if I recall correctly. The biggest pain is the accounting, but FreeAgent (the app referred from the article) sounds good, and I guess 300 GBP a year isn't too much for it.
Re: How to register a company in the UK
#27I registered directly with Companies House a few months ago, after consulting an accountant. It was completely straightforward. I don't see any need to use a third party.
How did you choose an accountant? That's the problem I'm currently facing. Actually, that would make a good swombat article...
I went to a friend of a friend who specialises in small businesses. I suppose asking for recommendations on HN might also work.
Re: How to register a company in the UK
#28My accountant did the company registration free for me. I'd caution against doing it yourself unless you know exactly what you are doing.
This is because, although the company creation itself is pretty simple, there are lots of legal requirements that you need to get right, and plenty of details you want to get right first time.
Just as one quick example- if you've been operating as a sole-trader, you'll probably find that there's a significant tax saving to be made by selling the goodwill and any other assets of the sole-trader to the Ltd Company. If you've been going a couple of years, this is likely to save you thousands in tax.
I don't believe its realistic for a trading Ltd company to deal with its tax affairs and annual accounts without an accountant (you may think you know what you're doing- but if you make a mistake, be aware that HMRC will be not be lenient on you just because you're not an accountant).
Re: How to register a company in the UK
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd advise against that, because it buffers you from knowing just how simple it is - and gets you in the habit of wasting money getting accountants to do things which you can do yourself in 10 minutes.
Do you know if I can file my own taxes? I keep everything in QuickBooks, and my company isn't really making enough money to justify spending thousands on an accountant. I wonder if I can do my own return, but the HMRC site is not helping. On the other hand, I wonder if I can just register as a sole trader, invoice my company and enjoy the free tax bracket, as I didn't make more than that last year.
Theoretically- yes you can. In practice NO NO NO!
An accountant shouldn't cost more than 60 quid or so a month for a Ltd company. It will pay back the investment many many times over if he's even in the least bit competent.
On the specific question about registering as a sole trader - no this isn't the way to do it. You should be paying yourself a salary from your Ltd Co to make use of your tax free allowance. Even if the Ltd Co hasn't got the cash to pay you- this is still fine, as you will build up a balance in the Directors Loan account which you can draw down on when you need to.
Re: How to register a company in the UK
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd advise against that, because it buffers you from knowing just how simple it is - and gets you in the habit of wasting money getting accountants to do things which you can do yourself in 10 minutes.
Do you know if I can file my own taxes? I keep everything in QuickBooks, and my company isn't really making enough money to justify spending thousands on an accountant. I wonder if I can do my own return, but the HMRC site is not helping. On the other hand, I wonder if I can just register as a sole trader, invoice my company and enjoy the free tax bracket, as I didn't make more than that last year.
You can file online (see https://ewf.companieshouse.gov.uk/help/en/stdwf/doclist06.ht... ). Bear in mind that signing up for webfiling can take a long time. Don't leave it to the last minute.
Life is much simpler as a sole trader though. As far as I can see the main reason to form a ltd company is if you want to employ people. I started a company because its the most tax-efficient way for me to invest consulting money into a future business.