In from the cold

Following the news that the proposed new legislation on income shifting has been put on ice I must admit to being rather confused by where we now are with this subject.

As I understand it HMRC don’t like it but are somewhat constrained as to what they can actually do about it. I act for some one man bands some of which are limited companies.

The spouses do the usual ‘looking after the business records and answering the phone’ type of duties and the accounts show some low level remuneration to reflect this.

However recession aside the businesses have been making increasing profits and I am wondering what else could be done to shelter these from higher rate tax liabilities.

Presumably with the businesses that are run as self-employments we could make the spouse a partner. On the basis that these are...