What would you do?

[Carbonio]

I'm after some advice if I may This is my situation, I currently have a PAYE job in the higher tax bracket, a small customer based business and some BTL's that haven't lost me anything but the capital gains have not been very good.

Enjoy the PAYE job and only work 14 shifts every 6 weeks so gives me plenty of time to do other things.

What would you do with a spare 30k? I'm looking for something I can set up and run in my spare time and was thinking of importing a few products and building a product line up but I'm open to other ideas.

Any ideas, none of my family or friends have much of a business acumen and I'm stumbling a little?

[Dejay1788]

Importing and re-selling can be a good earner, but it depends on a few things. Can you find something to sell that you a passionate about? Will you be selling from your own site or through Ebay / Amazon? Do you want to build a brand? Think of the costs involved when deciding what to sell. (Things like merchant accounts, paypal, postage, packaging etc..)

If you want to go down the route of building a brand and selling from your own website don't underestimate the amount of time it will consume.

[gregf40]

Why not spend time researching and investing in startups instead?

You currently get 30% tax relief on the investments under the EIS scheme and 50% under the SEIS scheme.

I've invested in some great companies through Seedrs (see my profile) and practically reduced my tax bill to zero with the reliefs from HMRC.

[Carbonio]

Dejay1788 said:

Importing and re-selling can be a good earner, but it depends on a few things. Can you find something to sell that you a passionate about? Will you be selling from your own site or through Ebay / Amazon? Do you want to build a brand? Think of the costs involved when deciding what to sell. (Things like merchant accounts, paypal, postage, packaging etc..)

If you want to go down the route of building a brand and selling from your own website don't underestimate the amount of time it will consume.

I have done a fair bit of selling on eBay, never used Amazon, and the fees are a bit of a killer and with sellers drop shipping the margins can be tiny.

I had though of maybe setting up and selling through Groupon or other offer sites in bulk, I have heard of others that have managed to make this work with certain products.

[Carbonio]

gregf40 said:

Why not spend time researching and investing in startups instead?

You currently get 30% tax relief on the investments under the EIS scheme and 50% under the SEIS scheme.

I've invested in some great companies through Seedrs (see my profile) and practically reduced my tax bill to zero with the reliefs from HMRC.

Greg, that looks very interesting. I take it that it can be quite risky but I'll look into it a little more.

Would be good to let my money do the work rather than me.

[gregf40]

Carbonio said:

Greg, that looks very interesting. I take it that it can be quite risky but I'll look into it a little more.

Would be good to let my money do the work rather than me.

It is risky - no doubt about it - but on the flip side the returns can be massive (and are also tax free).

If the company goes under you can also claim loss relief from HMRC. The EIS and SEIS schemes really are fantastic incentives to get 40%+ tax payers investing in start ups.

For example, I invested in LandBay through them in the earliest round and that's just raised £1.5m in an institutional round valuing the company at nearly 10 times what it was a year or so ago.

[Carbonio]

gregf40 said:

It is risky - no doubt about it - but on the flip side the returns can be massive (and are also tax free).

If the company goes under you can also claim loss relief from HMRC. The EIS and SEIS schemes really are fantastic incentives to get 40%+ tax payers investing in start ups.

For example, I invested in LandBay through them in the earliest round and that's just raised £1.5m in an institutional round valuing the company at nearly 10 times what it was a year or so ago.

Humm, this is starting to sound more interesting than physically working myself.

Something I can research and drop in and out of as I have time and the tax relief is a massive thing, one of the reasons I set up my small LTD business.

I'll send you a PM if that's ok?

Edited by Carbonio on Wednesday 17th December 17:59

[gregf40]

Carbonio said:

Humm, this is starting to sound more interesting than physically working myself.

Something I can research and drop in and out of as I have time and the tax relief is a massive thing, one of the reasons I set up my small LTD business.

I'll send you a PM if that's ok?

Edited by Carbonio on Wednesday 17th December 17:59

Ye sure

[ringram]

Max your SIPP out before EIS etc IMO.
You get full tax credit there anyway and can invest in much lower risk stuff.

[BrabusMog]

gregf40 said:

Carbonio said:

Greg, that looks very interesting. I take it that it can be quite risky but I'll look into it a little more.

Would be good to let my money do the work rather than me.

It is risky - no doubt about it - but on the flip side the returns can be massive (and are also tax free).

If the company goes under you can also claim loss relief from HMRC. The EIS and SEIS schemes really are fantastic incentives to get 40%+ tax payers investing in start ups.

For example, I invested in LandBay through them in the earliest round and that's just raised £1.5m in an institutional round valuing the company at nearly 10 times what it was a year or so ago.

I seem to recall you mentioning you invested in Amazon in another thread, be sure to give us all a nudge when you get another hot tip like that

[Carbonio]

ringram said:

Max your SIPP out before EIS etc IMO.
You get full tax credit there anyway and can invest in much lower risk stuff.

Have I got it right that I can put a maximum of £40k per year into a pension, can that be a mix of defined contribution and SIPP?