Taking money from a company on retirement.

[Problemsolve]

My wife and I jointly own our company. We are now in our mid 40s and after a long slog Cash reserves are building. Am I right to assume that age 55 we can withdraw up to 750k tax free. If so is that 750k each or in total. Many thanks for any advice.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

You should read this Key Post:

Tax planning: take salary or leave profits in company?

It's really not a good idea to build up cash reserves in a company. If you are generating good profits, take them as salary or put them into your pension.

It's ok to get ideas for research on askaboutmoney, but you need to pay a good tax planner to devise a plan for you.

Here is a good [broken link removed]
You will see that cash is not a qualifying asset and so is not exempt from CGT.

Chargeable Business Assets

Chargeable business assets are assets used for the purposes of a trade (including farming),
profession, office or employment, carried on by:
♦ The individual,
♦ The individual’s family company or
♦ A company, which is a member of a trading group of which the holding company is the
individual’s family company.
Land, buildings, plant and machinery are chargeable business assets. Goodwill is a chargeable
business asset. Shares and other assets held as investments are excluded. Assets, which are not
chargeable assets (for example, stock, debtors or cash) would not be included in the definition.
Essentially every asset is a
chargeable asset except one on the disposal of which, at the time of
the disposal, any gain arising would not be a chargeable gain. Thus shares held as an investment
would not be a chargeable
business asset but would be a chargeable asset.