Company Liquidation and Wrongful Trading
If your business is currently failing and you are worried that you are in danger of ‘wrongful trading,’ then here’s a quick guide to a few of the things you definitely should not do.
Make sure you don’t take any further credit if your company is insolvent and you know there is no realistic way you could pay the debt incurred on time. This really does mean ‘on time’ and not on a timescale of your own, because that would count as wrongful trading. Always remember to file your annual returns and accounts at Companies House, even if you can’t pay your VAT. Not doing so is wrongful trading.
It’s very important at this time to only pay yourself a reasonable salary if your company is struggling. To pay yourself or your managers an ‘excessive’ salary at this time counts as wrongful trading, although of course there are different ideas on what an ‘excessive’ salary is. As a guide, only pay yourself what you need.
What is Members Voluntary Liquidation?
A Members Voluntary Liquidation is unlike most forms of liquidation in that it is not done in response to a crisis. MVL is only for companies that are actually running well. They have cash, assets and no bad debt. This is an option when the business has perhaps simply run its course or has performed its function.
With Members Voluntary Liquidation the company’s assets are sold off so that the proceeds can be split among its shareholders. The company must be solvent to this, and it must also be able to meet the costs of the liquidation itself (as well as paying any costs of its own). This can happen when a family business falls into the hands of the next generation, and they do not want to run it, or even simply when a group of shareholders decide they want to free up their assets, to retire for example.
A lot of people tend to think that saving money and properly handling their finances is such a difficult to do. After all, we hear about