Unsettled with DH’s disclosure of income

[ParisianLady]

I will firstly acknowledge that this is a good problem to have but it has been on my mind. I know I might get flamed but I can’t talk to anyone in real life about this.

Essentially I asked my DH the other day what he earned/made last year, and the answer was much higher than I expected. He doesn’t even know the exact number and went off to find out.

We have a really very nice life, 3 kids at private school, lovely house, lovely holidays where we fly premium or business, parties for friends and no money worries. I grew up in a more modest environment so this is wonderful and I know how lucky we are.

I work full time in a really stressful job for my own enjoyment but it is well paid and I enjoy having my ‘own’ money and sense of achievement. I do the usual frugal and sensible things like buy second hand school uniform, buy big packets of meat and split them, put the dishwasher on at night on the cheaper rate, shop of bargains. But I will fairly spend freely on things we need or just want.

My DH recently asked if I could pay for some building work, and when we needed a new car I bought it myself (and was proud and happy to do that). He’s generous but it felt fair for me to pay for these things myself.

Somehow if feels a dishonest by omission of him not to have said what his business was making. I knew it was successful but am just shocked. Not that it materially changes our nice life but why did I pay for the building work for example?

He isn’t hiding anything, he just didn’t think it was worth mentioning and I didn’t ask. But it just doesn’t sit right. Does anyone have any advice apart from ‘talk to him about it’. It’s made me re-evaluate lots of our recent decisions

Did you agree at the outset that you would have separate finances ? Why would he think you should pay in some 'separate' way for the building work ? Will he never use that part of the house ? I realise some do have separate finances for their own reasons but I find it hard to understand how it works in practice. I know not everyone feels this way but I would feel that the husband is withholding part of himself from the marriage by not fully committing to sharing his life over time with his wife.

My job is literally advising UHNW on their tax affairs at a Big4 firm. I don’t need to ask anyone 😂 if it’s an PSC, IR35 will pick up the tax. If it’s a trading company or even a FIC/PIC then there will be tax to pay on extracting the cash, likely income tax. If there’s a way to reduce you tax bill, I’ll almost certainly know about it - legit or otherwise.

Now please, enlighten me (with legislative or manual references if you prefer) exactly what OP has said that indicates the structure is a tax avoidance scheme.

We share everything.

Accounts & email addresses.

The joint account pays the bills.

Yes absolutely this. You should BOTH sit down and write down your finances, and then work out how much you should each pay per month.

Unsettled!!!!! Behave yourself woman 🙄

Exactly - who on earth falls for this shite

I am astonished that as a company director you have shown no inclination to know how the business is structured, and what money is coming in or going out. You really should take those liabilities seriously, for your own sake.

I am also very surprised you appear to have such limited involvement or engagement in your family wealth management, either how much money there is or what your family (really your husband’s) accountant and wealth manager are doing with it. I get a report from our family accountant each year and log onto our investment platforms regularly to see what’s going on, and I always thought I was doing the bare minimum.

Hopefully, it will all turn out just fine. In reality, for most women in this situation (you aren’t the first and won’t be the last) it actually does. But your financial security is not affording business class flights and school fees. It is being actively and fairly involved in your business and family financial matters. Time to get savvy.

What a load of made up rubbish. No way do you earn £400k in a year whilst being so daft! Can never get my around separate finances in married couples - it won't be separate in a divorce!

@ParisianLady I buy second hand clothes (some of the time) for my child, it saves things going to landfill when they are only worn for a few months!

If you are a Director of a Limited Company you are responsible for its finances and therefore you must ensure that you are aware of any financial obligations, profits, value of creditors and debtors. Do you check the bank statements, VAT and corporation tax returns, annual accounts? Or are you only a Director for a tax fiddle?

Burning question how much are we talking !!

So, I promise you, this will be my last post on this as I'm not trying to harangue you, and we have people coming for dinner tonight so I have to get ready, but some things here really just don't make sense.

According to this thread, you made £400,000 last year or in a recent year. There are only a handful of sectors that pay those salaries. In all of them, if you're senior enough to be making that salary, you're senior enough to take a day off for pretty much whatever you want, even to meet with your wealth manager/financial advisor. Plus, you have time today, anyway, to be posting on MN, so you likely could have found the time somewhere.

I also don't know anyone savvy enough to have climbed to that salary who would agree to be a director of a business about which they seemingly know absolutely nothing. Don't you have to approve and sign the annual accounts?

It seems like either you've deliberately chosen to stay in the dark or something here isn't adding up.

Just to clarify one thing (as there are many posts that indicated people don’t understand the difference between personal earning and company profits, or profits and dividends, or equity and income) - dividends are paid to shareholders, not directors. Shareholders don’t have to be directors, and directors don’t have to be shareholders. Furthermore, shareholders don’t have to all have the same class of shares, and so dividends do not necessarily have to be in proportion to shareholding, though for a given class of share they should.

I am not surprised that in a high earning couple where at least one has their own company they are not all over the detail of what their individual earnings are. I am surprised that in that context there’s a lack of understanding about the difference between the individual and the company, between assets and equity, between earnings and profits and between salary and dividends!

Second hand uniform is normal. You can tell the families who are first generation in private education because all their stuff is new.

In 10 years I bought 2 new blazers, one for each school when we were new to the areas. After that, I'd met people and swapped in and out or bought from the second hand shop.

If it’s a Ltd company just go to Companies House and look at the submitted accounts.

When I was at a private boarding school in the 90s, EVERYONE bought second hand uniform except those who were perhaps sending their children to boarding school without having been themselves.

The dates of the uniform shop were put on a slip with the year dates, all the mothers met up end of August in the shop (before the school year in Sept) holding skirts up against us and drowning us in giant wool school jumpers that fell practically to our knees, saying “well she’ll grow in to it won’t she?” And paying cash in to a collection pot that was delivered next day to the children’s hospice.

The only people that didn’t go to those were the footballer’s wives types. Their poor daughters turned up self consciously with very smart navy blue trunks with shiny brass corners - clearly bought from Harrods, and jumpers so new from the official supplier in London (who must have been thrilled) that they still had the creases in them. My own trunk just had my mother’s initial and maiden name scored out with a sharpie and mine stamped underneath. I was mortified initially to have a “second hand” trunk then saw that everyone else was similar. My tuck box has been my grandpa’s in the early 1930s. His name just stayed on it and I used it as a bedside table.

But clearly NEITHER of you pay any attention to money - you haven't asked, he hasn't thought to say.

If you're married, what's all this 'I bought a car' nonsense? You jointly bought a car.

Thank goodness someone has pointed this out - there's lots of misinformation about directors being entitled to dividends on this thread or being appointed a director "as a tax dodge". Directors manage the company but don't own it (shareholders do).

This

Your relationship sounds really weird and transactional OP

I would be annoyed to be asked to pay for something really big like building works if he has loads of cash in the bank. I think you need to take a more vested interest in the family finances. Is he tight?

I would be annoyed to be asked to pay for something really big like building works if he has loads of cash in the bank. I think you need to take a more vested interest in the family finances. Is he tight?

She says she has (in the post you quoted)

Oh f**k off OP!

Just because you have money doesn't mean you don't understand its value.
My youngest will soon finish private schooling, just as her siblings did.
The school has recently started organising a second hand uniform sale.
The uniform cost £1500 new, so I think it is a fantastic idea to resell on.
I will be bundling up ours to donate.
If she was starting off, I wouldn't hesitate to buy from the sale.
Friends gave my sons old blazers as its so handy to have spares.
Again, i passed my son's uniforms on to friends of friends.
Having money and valuing it are not mutually exclusive traits.

As for buying vintage, why not.
In the past year I have bought my fashion obsessed daughters some gorgeous expensive bags, in perfect condition for not more than a £10.
Think Furla, Coach, mulberry, kate spade...all for between 10-20 quid, in perfect condition.

The girls love them, and know I wouldn't buy them for full price in a month of sundays.

I adore the circular economy.

You should be paying for everything pro rata. If not, then one of you is raking the piss. Really odd not to know each other's incomes.