Dividend payements can be taken out of company profits after corporation tax has been paid. For example:
Turnover = £100,000
Salaries and other running costs and expenses = £30,000
Net Profit = £70,000 (£100,000 - £30,000)
Corporation Tax = £14,700 (21% of £70,000)
Amount Available for Dividend Payment(s) = £55,300 (£70,000 - £14,700)
To prevent double taxation (where both corporation tax and income tax are charged on the same profits), the dividend received carries a tax credit. This effectively states that the net dividend has been taxed at the basic rate of taxation.
This means you don’t pay any further tax on your income if you are a basic rate tax payer - your taxable income is less than the higher rate tax threshold (about £36,000)
How Much Is The Tax Credit?
The tax credit is 10% of the gross dividend.
The dividend paid to shreholders is the net dividend.
With reference to the above example:
The net dividend payement is £55,300.
Therefore, the gross dividend is £55,300 x 1.111111 = £61,444.44.
Therefore, the tax credit is £6,144.44 (£61,444.44 - £55,300).
If you are a basic rate tax payer, you pay 10% of the gross dividend in tax, which is considered already paid via the tax credit. Therefore, you have no more tax to pay.
If you are a higher rate tax payer, you will be charged tax at the rate of 32.5% of the gross dividend in tax.
For our example, this is 32.5% of £61,444, which equals £19,969.44.
From this figure you need to deduct the tax credit of £6,144.44.
£19,969.44 - $6,144.44 = £13,825.
This equates to 25% of the net dividend of £55,300.
You can use Earnings Tracker to calculate your tax credits and generate dividend tax vouchers.