To reduce National Insurance costs, shareholders of small privately owned companies, who are also working directors of the company, can presently restructure their remuneration package to reduce their salary and make up the difference as dividend payments. Unless this strategy is affected by the Budget at the end of this month, this remains one of the most useful ways for owner directors of small companies to reduce their overall tax and NIC costs. Dividends are not considered to be a business cost. They don’t reduce the amount of profit assessable to corporation tax. Rather, dividends are a distribution of profits [...]