Book Description
Under 2025/26 UK tax rates, incorporating as a limited company costs most freelancers earning between £40,000 and £80,000 more money than staying a sole trader. Not marginally. More.
This book shows you the exact calculation, at your income level.
You have been told you should probably go limited. Your accountant raised it at the end of a meeting. A peer announced the move on LinkedIn. Someone explained the salary-dividend combination over coffee as though it were the sort of thing everyone already understands. What nobody provided was the actual number: the full tax comparison at your income level, with 2025/26 rates, showing what you would actually keep.
This book provides that number.
Across five income bands from £40,000 to £80,000, it compares sole trader take-home against limited company take-home using current UK tax rates. The result: at four of the five income bands, the limited company costs more in tax before a single accountancy cost is added. At the one band with a gross saving, £60,000, that saving is £500. The midpoint accountancy cost premium of £1,500 per year turns it into a net cost of £1,000. Under 2025/26 rates, the net saving from incorporation is negative at every income band from £40,000 to £80,000.
That conclusion does not appear in your accountant’s blog. It is unlikely to arrive unprompted in your next meeting: a practice that moves a sole trader client to limited company accountancy typically adds £700 to £2,500 to that client’s annual fee. This book names that structural incentive plainly, and gives you the numbers to verify the advice yourself.
Inside this book
- The exact sole trader versus limited company tax comparison at £40k, £50k, £60k, £70k, and £80k profit, using 2025/26 rates and the optimal salary-dividend split.
- What IR35 does to the calculation if your main client is a medium or large business: why it eliminates the tax advantage of incorporation for that income entirely, and how to assess your own exposure.
- The accountancy cost premium at midpoint and upper estimates across every income band, so the net saving, not the theoretical saving, is the figure you are working with.
- Making Tax Digital: from April 2026, sole traders above £50,000 face four quarterly HMRC submissions per year plus ongoing software costs. Limited companies do not.
- The four specific conditions under which remaining a sole trader is the financially correct decision, with evidence rather than hedging.
- A practical setup chapter for readers whose numbers do support the move.
Whether your answer is yes or no, you will finish this book knowing which one it is, grounded in your own numbers.