Partnerships

If you are married you might want to consider bringing your Spouse into your Self-Employed business to form a Partnership.

The tax benefit of this is that, if setup correctly, you can apportion the profits between the two of you to be the most tax advantageous. For example, if one of you is a lower rate tax payer and the other is higher rate, by trading through a Partnership you could choose to allocate more profits to the lower tax rate Partner.

There are other non-tax issues to consider with Partnerships such as the fact that you are ceding some control of your business.