Q-bit

How do all,
I'm thinking of going about setting up a record label to put some weight behind my band - we'd like to have an official front getting gigs & printing CDs, etc, so we'll be taken a bit more seriously. The company itself will likely not make any profit - the board of directors will be the band members (four of us) and since the company isn't actually going to be publishing anything per se there won't really be any money going through the books. Think of it as something to put on letterheads and a name for copyright purposes (and possibly a way to get around dodgy record company contracts).
My question is essentially: does anyone here know how this all works, ie, registering a limited company at Companies House, and what would need to be done by this company for it to exist, ie taxes, income, outgoings, etc.

Any information greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
-Qubit

Neil Micklethwaite

Hi

Quite a few IT Contractors on here have their own limited companies.

I do.

I got myself a decent accountant who sorted the company stuff out for me ( I paid £80 in 1997 ) and they take care of all the crap.

They bought a company and I supplied the name. They got all the 'official' stuff done and just sent me the paper work.

I know you can do it all yourself but at the time I thought I would get somebody to handle it all for a small price.

There are companies who specialise in setting up companies - try Exchange and Mart etc.

Other than that try Companies House on the web ( don't have the URL to hand - sorry )

Hope that helps

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

http://www.companies-house.gov.uk/

carl

The pros and cons of this were covered a couple of days ago (here).

Q-bit

Okay - this all looks promising to begin with. Next thing I could do with knowing is what happens about salaries/wages ? In actuality, the company would just be a 'front' for a band, and all of us would be on the board of directors because, should this particular gamble work out & we start to get some publishers interested, we all want our say. however, being a company with no discernible income, would there be a problem with that little thing called the 'minimum wage' ? Directors are actually employees of the company, and theoretically the company would have to pay them. If the company isn't earning (which it doesn't need to do), then it'll become insolvent pretty quickly if we have to start bunging money from the businees account into our own accounts or else break the minimum wage law.

Now, this could well be a silly question, but I'd rather know now what the potential hurdles are for this venture - remember, there's unlikely to be any real money coming in, so I really don't want to fall foul of any laws that say a certain amount of money has to come out...

Cheers,
-Qubit

Phil

Minimum Wage is only there to stop people being paid badly if you don't want to be paid then no one is going to moan

Phil

carl

Bear in mind that you generally don't get free banking with a business account, so if there's no money going into the company it's going to become overdrawn fairly quickly. IIRC Royal Bank of Scotland are doing business accounts with 12 months free banking at the moment.

Q-bit

I've had a business bank account before - as a sole trader. banking costs themselves aren't a problem, I already earn enough myself to cover these (I think), and if not, our guitarist looks like he'll be earning stupid amounts of money on the session circuit quite soon. The main problem is just that there won't be enough to over large running costs, that sort of thing... If it's possibly to legally run a registered, limited company with no turnover, and no real outgoings other than the cost of a printer & some professional-looking headed paper, then I'm happy...

Lee

Natwest do 18 months free banking if you are a personal customer.

I used Midlands company services to setup a ltd company - cost about £94 iirc.

You don't need to do PAYE unless you want to pay your staff

Theres bugger all else to it to be honest, you need to get a set of records to co.house once in a while

mail me off-bbs if you have any questions.

Seamus300

Lee is spot on. As Directors (shareholders) you don't need to pay yourselves anything, unless they are working as employees as well, in which case you need the PAYE scheme in operation. I paid a private accountant to set up my limited company cost £90 4/5 years ago. It's worth speaking to a local accountant to yourselves and see what they can offer, won't cost you anything to have a chat with them. With you not putting money through the books and not having a PAYE scheme your accountants will be very simple and therefore reasonably cheap.
My business account is with Flemings and they only charge me if I go overdrawn or make more than a certain number of transactions a month (20 I think), which I don't.

Lee

Only thing worth mentioning is that by not paying yourself through PAYE you will lose out. Assuming you have no other job you have a 4k tax allowance to use. so you can pay yourself 4k without enduring tax :-) Else you have to go via dividends which are subject to corporation tax (20% ?)

christ knows frankly - just get an accountant