Maternity allowance/KIT days and pay/new company! Help!

[PermaShattered]

I have a question for my faithful advisers (you know who you are ;-) )

I have gone from sole trader to limited company. I'm also on maternity leave, planning on taking maternity allowance for about 3 months. I've used up 4 KIT days. I invoiced from the company (the first company invoice) but think (except for the personal tax implications) that I'd have been better off invoicing as sole trader.

Now I don't know how best to access some of that money.

Can I take a dividend? Will it have implications because I'm a sole trader but this is through the company? Does it matter that it's the same business - just incorporated? And because I'm a salaried director?

Any intelligence advice greatly appreciated! x

You are not the company
the company is not you
if its sole breadwinner is on maternity it's pretty quiet for the company as it will not be billing
but in the real world it can certainly be working on projects that get billed after the director stops claiming maternity pay ;-}
and if it has reserves it can vote a dividend to the shareholder

what does YOUR accountant suggest as they have seen the numbers

Ta for that! Yes, spoke to him and he says it effectively makes no difference - same work/business just incorporated. And so there's no problem with me taking payment for the KIT days worked.

I shall get to grips with all in the end! Just trying to maximise the KIT days in tandem with MA before I get back to work. There's so much more to it than I imagined but then again i like a challenge!

Now, I have to register for online VAT services.

Oh help. Just looked at registered for PAYE. That looks too complicated to do myself :-(

1. You can work on up to 10 days before it affects your MA - doesn't matter what work, who for, self employed or employed, it all counts for the 10 days.

1. You can receive any salary, dividends or other income without it affecting your MA - the restriction is on receiving MA while working not while receiving income.

1. Any payment of salary or dividend should be discussed and coordinated with your accountant to avoid costly mistakes - the whole point of incorporation is to save tax but if you don't get the timing or amount of payments right it could cost you more.