Members Voluntary Liquidation Companies - Recommendations?

[swebb]

Hi after a fair while contracting I have finally decided to go back to a permanent role. I will use MVL to close my company and get the cash out of it, 25k+.

There are a fair few companies who offer MVL services, the prices vary a fair bit. I would love to hear some recommendations if anyone has used these services.

My company has just me as a shareholder and director, has no debts, I have not paid dividends this year, have no sales this year (extended break) so no corp tax and the only asset is a laptop. I would hope this makes MVL for my company about as simple as it gets.

Oh and also I have read forom different sources close down periods of 6 weeks and 6 months ??

Thanks in advance.

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

MVL might not be necessary. If yu haven't taken a dividend this year, Divi out what you can before higher rate tax becomes an issue. Take into account what you expect to earn between now and 5/4/16 as well. Then issue balance in capital. If its under £25k you can do it with a cheap and nasty wind-up.

[Maslins]

Kinda what Alan said, though as well as accounting for expected salary over next 6 months, also be aware that when looking to close, whether distributions near the end suffer dividends or CGT should be more down to the facts than pure choice. If you stopped trading a while back, and close down soon, I'd suggest you might struggle to argue that any funds taken now were dividends.

Having said that, if net assets were (say) £26k, then being practical I'd suggest it probably makes sense to "find a way" to get them down sub £25k so you can then do a cheap and cheerful strike off.

I'm 50% owner of MVL Online, which if you do go down the MVL route should cater well to you.

Re timescales, one of the problems is that we need to get clearance from HMRC before we can close. On recent cases this is often taking circa 6 months. Be aware that we can (and do) distribute a large chunk of the money well before that, typically ~75% as soon as we get funds from the company's bank.

Appreciate your comments re your case being as simple as it gets, but if you did want to proceed with us, please do still ensure you complete final tasks with your accountant as outlined in the top half of our "How We Work" page.

[swebb]

Thanks both.

Re the dividend, well I am moving to a fairly well paid permie position so if I pay a dividend to myself I think by the end of the year I will be getting hit for some fairly high rates of tax so I expect that not paying a dividend will be the better option.

The company has a fair bit more than 25K in it so even after using various means to lower what the company has in its bank then I will still be looking at a chunk a fair bit higher than 25K.

Thanks for the link Maslins, I may well be in contact about processing things forward.

[JB3000]

MVL might not be necessary. If yu haven't taken a dividend this year, Divi out what you can before higher rate tax becomes an issue. Take into account what you expect to earn between now and 5/4/16 as well. Then issue balance in capital. If its under £25k you can do it with a cheap and nasty wind-up.

I'm not sure this is correct apart from the fact it would be nasty.

Dividends well after the cessation of trade but just before the strike off of the company are not unlikely to get around the £25k statutory cap.

Nice try though, rock on

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

I'm not sure this is correct apart from the fact it would be nasty.

Dividends well after the cessation of trade but just before the strike off of the company are not unlikely to get around the £25k statutory cap.

Nice try though, rock on

Yep. I missed the not trading for a while bit. My bad.

[ake]

I have gone through the process using service of MVLonline for liquidation of my company and can highly recommend them.

[swebb]

Kinda what Alan said, though as well as accounting for expected salary over next 6 months, also be aware that when looking to close, whether distributions near the end suffer dividends or CGT should be more down to the facts than pure choice. If you stopped trading a while back, and close down soon, I'd suggest you might struggle to argue that any funds taken now were dividends.

Having said that, if net assets were (say) £26k, then being practical I'd suggest it probably makes sense to "find a way" to get them down sub £25k so you can then do a cheap and cheerful strike off.

I'm 50% owner of MVL Online, which if you do go down the MVL route should cater well to you.

Re timescales, one of the problems is that we need to get clearance from HMRC before we can close. On recent cases this is often taking circa 6 months. Be aware that we can (and do) distribute a large chunk of the money well before that, typically ~75% as soon as we get funds from the company's bank.

Appreciate your comments re your case being as simple as it gets, but if you did want to proceed with us, please do still ensure you complete final tasks with your accountant as outlined in the top half of our "How We Work" page.

Hi again Maslins just one quick question. At the moment my company has a current account with about 5% of cash in it and two savings accounts with the other 95% in them. Before I start MVL would I need to transfer all funds in to the current account. If so I am a little concerned at having more than the 85K FSA limit in an account.

Thanks in advance.

[northernladuk]

Hi again Maslins just one quick question. At the moment my company has a current account with about 5% of cash in it and two savings accounts with the other 95% in them. Before I start MVL would I need to transfer all funds in to the current account. If so I am a little concerned at having more than the 85K FSA limit in an account.

Thanks in advance.

And what is the risk of your bank going bust in the next couple of months?

[Maslins]

Hi again Maslins just one quick question. At the moment my company has a current account with about 5% of cash in it and two savings accounts with the other 95% in them. Before I start MVL would I need to transfer all funds in to the current account. If so I am a little concerned at having more than the 85K FSA limit in an account.

Thanks in advance.

From our perspective it being in a savings/current account with one bank makes negligible difference. Typically the bank in question will close both accounts at the same time.

Where it's spread across different banks, it can cause a problem. Reason being each bank will respond on their own timescales, so we might get some of your company's cash really quick, but then be waiting ages for the remainder.

Certainly makes our life easier if you combine it to be held with one bank.

Barclays and Cater Allen are without doubt the two best banks we deal with.
HSBC/Santander are ok.
Natwest/Lloyds/BoS/RBoS are painfully slow.