Is your partnership tax-efficient?

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Tax efficiency is one of the major deciding factors between different types of businesses, particularly for those that are growing and need to minimise costs.

A partnership is one of three main company types that you might choose from, in which two or more people work together to generate a profit. There are three types of partnership:

This is in contrast to a limited company, which has been incorporated, making it a legal entity separate from its shareholders, owners or directors, or a sole trader, which is one individual solely responsible for the running and ownership of a business.

The tax structure of partnerships

Partnerships are not separate entities to their owners, so they themselves are not subject to tax such as Corporation Tax.

Instead, profits are taxed as income via each partner.

Profits may be divided equally among all partners in a business or on a proportional basis determined by the equity each partner has in the firm.

However you choose to divide profits within a partnership, you’ll pay Income Tax and National Insurance on the share of total profits you receive via Self-Assessment.

While this is a straightforward way to run a business and pay tax on earnings, it may not be the most tax efficient business structure, depending on your circumstances.

That said, it is possible to optimise your partnership’s tax setup. Here’s how:

Optimising your tax obligations

Partnerships are designed to be transparent for operational and tax purposes. For this reason, they have a simple tax set up which can be difficult to optimise.

However, you can take the following steps to ensure you aren’t paying more tax than necessary:

In the past, a common practice to ensure tax efficiency was known as mixed member partnerships. This is a company business structure wherein some of the ‘partners’ were corporations, creating a lower overall tax liability on profits which were then extracted from the company by the individual partner or a relative.

However, bear in mind that this company structure is now subject to anti-avoidance regulations, so you should seek advice if any partners in your business are corporations or non-individuals.

For further advice on making your partnership tax efficient, please contact our expert team today.