GoCardless & Business Partnerships

[Iron Giant]

This might be of use to some who are considering a partnership in the future for tax efficiency and currently use GC, GoCardless doesn't support general partnerships in the UK this was after I was told they did then pushed a bit more for clarification after I found this GoCardless Customer Hub which I wasn't able to find after searching multiple times previously, the customer service agent did do some running around to get me the answer I needed,

This could have been a nightmare for me as I have 100's of customers on GC along with Cleaner Planner integration which I have used for almost 10 years, thankfully HMRC doesn't require you to have a partnership bank account with a general partnership this is different from a joint account entirely, so the way forward and to doing everything correctly in the eyes of HMRC is to add my wife to my bank account so she is named on the account and regarding GC my bank account details aren't changing so everything stays as it always has with them without any payment interruption.

 

[Part Timer]

for tax efficiency

Good way to phrase it ?

 

[Iron Giant]

Good way to phrase it ?

All legal and above board then, better than tax dodging

 

[ched999uk]

For some reason financial organisations treat Partnership businesses as something very different. We have run our businesses as Partnerships for about 18 years and the amount of times we have come across organisations who wont deal with partnerships is quite staggering. Some banks won't even do partnership accounts - I think Starling didn't a couple of years ago - not sure now.
I have never been able to find out what the issue is but there is definitely some rules that make it difficult.

That said I don't remember GC asking if we where a partnership or not.

For the level of turnover a small 'tax efficient' would generate (staying under VAT) then I would be very surprised if you would get a full audit. Even then as long as the incomings and outgoings where all correct and you had paid all tax due I can't imagine they would have an issue with stuff like GC not supporting partnerships.

 

[Iron Giant]

For some reason financial organisations treat Partnership businesses as something very different. We have run our businesses as Partnerships for about 18 years and the amount of times we have come across organisations who wont deal with partnerships is quite staggering. Some banks won't even do partnership accounts - I think Starling didn't a couple of years ago - not sure now.
I have never been able to find out what the issue is but there is definitely some rules that make it difficult.

That said I don't remember GC asking if we where a partnership or not.

For the level of turnover a small 'tax efficient' would generate (staying under VAT) then I would be very surprised if you would get a full audit. Even then as long as the incomings and outgoings where all correct and you had paid all tax due I can't imagine they would have an issue with stuff like GC not supporting partnerships.

I did search for partnership bank accounts and came up with nothing this was initially after my accountant said we would have to open a partnership bank account and came up with nothing doing a web search, its a bit bewildering as we of course like you would be able to provide all the required documentation, yet they'll let sports clubs or associations and charities with multiple people needing checking relating to banking sign up no issues at all.

The GC side of things was just a potential issue as I just wanted to ensure everything was done correctly, I won't be changing my bank account as legally there isn't a need to and this saves the hassle of going through verification again, I was told by GC I could add a second person to my GC account and they told me how to in our initial and final contact, everything will be done within the law regarding HMRC which is the most important thing.