It’s that time of year again where decisions need to be made about your remuneration planning for the upcoming tax year. This year however, there are further changes to the tax landscape which may affect your decisions.
We’ve asked Claire Howarth, Director from our Leeds office, to outline what you need to take into consideration.
Over to Claire
The main impacts you need to think about are the increase in corporation tax rates, which came into effect 1st April 2023, but also more recently in the Spring budget, a further reduction in the cost of employees national insurance from 6th April 2024.
Largely, the overall impact of opting ‘salary vs dividend’ is now marginal, but every case can have a different outcome due to various factors which will apply. Below I’ve listed a few things to consider.
Cashflow
Whilst this does not consider the overall cost of taxation (on you and the business), it is a real-life consideration if the business experiences cashflow challenges.
Tax is payable on dividends under self-assessment and the monies drawn for 23/24 will result in further payments becoming due in July 24 and January 2025 on these payments.
If there is a switch to a higher salary in 24/25, then tax becomes payable on this each month, starting 19th May 2024, which may result in a cashflow squeeze.
Taking home pay on a monthly basis is invariably less as a salary as it is a net payment.
Corporation Tax
The top rate of Corporation Tax (CT) is now 25%, and those companies with profits over £250k, will pay CT at the top rate on all profits. For those with profits between £50k and £250k, the CT is levied on a sliding scale between 19% and 25%.
Those companies paying the higher rates of corporation tax can look at remuneration planning, including pensions and salary increases, to mitigate the impact of this.
National insurance cuts
The employee national insurance reduction has certainly closed the margin of benefit of dividend over salary, but employers’ national insurance remains the same at 13.8%.
Practicalities
There are certainly arguments both for and against opting for salary over dividend. In businesses where there are shareholders who contribute different levels of time or skill to the business, a salary is a useful tool to differentiate between rewards arising. As the dividend lure has always been so strong, in many cases, salaries have been avoided. This may be an opportunity to review and simplify the reward structure.
Many business owners like to vary the amounts paid out of the business to them during the year. Moving to salary makes this less practical and probably more costly for payroll processing.
Here to help
If you would like further guidance on remuneration planning for your business, we’re here to help. To get in touch with our friendly team of experts, please fill out the form below.
