New queries, issue 4255

Devilish plan

My client is a married woman who has a small consultancy business carried on via a limited company. Her husband’s salary is the main source of the family income.

In recent years to mitigate Class 1 National Insurance costs remuneration has been restricted to an amount just over the NIC lower earnings limit (LEL) which left a small profit in the company. For 2009/10 the same policy was adopted but it seems that the company will show a loss.

Will this prevent the year (and future years if this scenario continues) qualifying for the purposes of entitlement to a state retirement pension in due course? And does it matter if not all of the voted remuneration is actually drawn?

Having thought about this I did start to wonder what would prevent a person setting up a limited company voting remuneration (undrawn) just...