LTD company and PAYE scheme - can I opt-out?

[DrinkFeckArseGirls]

I am the sole director of a limited company. There is a large(ish) number of people who work for my company on ad-hoc basis and they are self-employed. I will not be taking out any wages, just paying myself in dividends. I would like to opt-out of the PAYE scheme as in my opinion there is no need for it. I got a letter back from the HMRC, in which the eperson who wrote it assumed (even though I explained as above) that the company must have ceased. IS it possible to opt-out when the company is still active? Can't find clear info on that.

Yes it is possible for a company not to be registered as an employer: call HMRC and tell them the circumstances, they may ask you to follow up in writing.

It does beg a few questions though:

• why did the company register for PAYE in the first place?
• do you have another job? If not, you should almost certainly pay yourself the personal allowance through the company.
• how are you going to comply with the obligation to submit a corporation tax return and iXBRL accounts online?
• are you sure that HMRC vew the workers as self employed?
• etc.

Hi MrAnchovy, tanks for replying.

I did put it in writing explaining the reasons as I did above and received a reply saying more or less 'no problem but can you please supply us with the date of the company cessation' and to supply them with another address if the current one is not valid anymore due to the company being ceased . The company is relatively knew, when everything was being set up I wasn't much around as I was on maternity leave. There used to be one more director who left since then and I overtook the business on my own.

• We didn't register for PAYE, just one day we got the paperwork in the post. Yes, I do have another small business, where I am the only employee and I use the PAYE scheme.

• I am registered online for the Corporation Tax for the business in question. I just googled iXBRL and for now I do everything manually (first year of trading) - I will invest in the software hopefully in the next 6 months.

• The company works on the basis of agency, it's not the workers main source of income, they do several hours here and there, they are registered self-employed. They are paid by the hour when they do work and not paid when they're not.

I can't understand how you managed to get a scheme started in the first place. you have to apply for a paye scheme, usually giving the name of at least one director, the business address and the date you want the scheme to start. Did your accountant set it up for you, maybe 2 or 3 years ago to benefit from the online filing bonus perhaps? If there is no liability, it's easy to cease the scheme....give the employers helpline a ring