Dividend vouchers and board meeting minutes - printed or electronic copies?

[northernladuk]

been contracting for 4 years and haven't ever done board minutes or dividend vouchers. I have been living in ignorance. I know as the director of a limited company I take ultimate responsibility for running it in a legal way, however I'm slightly peeved that my accountant didn't clue me up. See below for his response. Surely he is clearly wrong? I pointed him in the direction of the PCG website which states they need to be done every time you declare a divided :frustrated

Ignorance is not the word you should be using here. Negligently, on a fine line, dangerously, illegally would be much better. Ignorance is no defense in this situation.

[d000hg]

Electronic Copies can always be printed should they be needed, unless they plan to send the vouchers for carbon dating.

That's my thinking. Since nobody has ever asked to see my vouchers I don't even create electronic copies - I simply keep a spreadsheet of the dates and amounts of each dividend. If anyone ever wishes to see the vouchers, I can create them and who's ever going to know?

[d000hg]

This is what I am leaning towards doing. Is is feasible to have a spreadsheet showing the dividends with a mail merge or similar function to generate the paper work as and when needed? Makes things much easier as I can just list all the dividends and dates in a spreadsheet and generate the documents as and when needed.

You can certainly create a template with a macro in it, but TBH I reckon I'd have to do 100 dividends at least before it takes up more time than creating an automated solution would.

So I can't be arsed - if I ever want to learn Word/Excel programming it'd be a useful task. Or I'd pay a Bob $15 to knock one up for me.

[psychocandy]

Well I can kind of see his point, but it's not actually good advice. I doubt HMRC will be too impressed if 90% of your income was not legally defined as a dividend when it left your company account so will treat it as salary and ask forhe the appropriate taxes. My accountant rolls up the total divis for the year in the books as a single figure, but that does not imply that I took one single divvi at year end.

My own approach is to stick to the spirit of the law, if not the actual letter, and (a) don't take regular or consistent divvis, (b) pay them as a separate transaction and (c) note the relevant details in a spreadsheet that can easily be mailmerged into a printout if Hector really wants to see them. Since I am the only shareholder and have a fairly good idea where the money goes and what taxes are due, I don't see the need for anything more complicated.

Doing it properly documented with separate transaction = yes deffo.

Timing of dividends = makes no difference at all.

[No2politics]

Dividend vouchers and board meeting minutes - printed or electronic copies?

True. However in the event of a financial loss on my part I would be straight on the phone to a no win no fee lawyer, claiming my accountant failed to provide me with sufficient duty of care.

Researching other accountants as this is probably the straw that broke the camels back. (Two important hmrc deadlines missed due to his incompetence)

[Wanderer]

You can certainly create a template with a macro in it, but TBH I reckon I'd have to do 100 dividends at least before it takes up more time than creating an automated solution would. So I can't be arsed - if I ever want to learn Word/Excel programming it'd be a useful task. Or I'd pay a Bob $15 to knock one up for me.

Easier than that. You could create a spreadsheet to list the dividends (and track divis remaining this FY before higher rate tax due), then create a template for the meeting minutes and dividend voucher. In the minutes/voucher template you have a date field which does a VLOOKUP to pick up the dividend amount from the spreadsheet and simple formulas to populate the gross/net dividend/tax credit fields for you.

That's my thinking. Since nobody has ever asked to see my vouchers I don't even create electronic copies - I simply keep a spreadsheet of the dates and amounts of each dividend. If anyone ever wishes to see the vouchers, I can create them and who's ever going to know?

Some printers encode the timestamp and printer identifier on every document, it's called Printer Steganography....

[d000hg]

Yes but they can't prove your printer wasn't just set to the wrong time.

[SueEllen]

Yes but they can't prove your printer wasn't just set to the wrong time.

There isn't.

I just keep electronic copies of dividend vouchers and board minutes.

I use to have to print them out once a year to send to my accountant so I had a jpeg of my signature in black ink which I would put on them. (Lots of companies use jpeg signature files to put on documents which are legally binding.)

Since I changed accountants I don't bother printing them out particularly as my other random share holdings have done electronic dividend vouchers for the past 4 years.

[northernladuk]

No one liked my idea of just doing one a year and investing the money and drawing what you want from that investment? Makes me glum.

[SueEllen]

No one liked my idea of just doing one a year and investing the money and drawing what you want from that investment? Makes me glum.

I actually know and have met contractors who do this. They just draw out one dividend a year. Then again their wives have very well paid permanent jobs.