self employed/employed - advantages/disadvantages

[belgarath]

My wife and I are registered childminders working in our own home. I complete our tax returns and we make a profit before tax of around £15 000 per year each i.e.total of 30000. Would there be any benefit of me becoming employed by her or vice versa? I realise that this would introduce scary stuff like PAYE, employers liability etc

[jpcentral]

Probably not, although if you were only running one business thee might be some saving in costs, particularly registrations where I imagine you need two now.

If you operate two separate, identical, businesses from the same premises it must be difficult determining what expenses can be attributed to which business. I am pretty sure that HMRC would have a good time examining all of the expenses. Have you considered operating as a partnership?