One of the benefits of trading via a limited company is that, if things go wrong, then - assuming you've done nothing wrong or reckless personally - you can walk away from any liabilities that your company can't pay. The price that you've always had to pay for that privilege is that you have to file documents including annual accounts at Companies House, so that the public can see (in pretty general terms) who is behind the business and how it's doing financially. If you want to keep that information private, that's absolutely fine - you just don't form a company. You remain as a sole trader or partnership, and in return for the privacy you consequently accept a greater degree of personal risk if things go wrong.
The idea has now been proposed of exempting small companies from making accounts available at Companies House at all. So, the shareholders would still have the benefit of being able to walk away if things go wrong, but the public would have no right to see who was behind a business or how it was doing.
That would be grossly unreasonable. Whenever someone wants to pitch something to us or otherwise do business with us, or when we meet people at networking or other events, we'll routinely download their accounts from Companies House. And the information this turns up can often be really interesting and relevant. It's not unusual to find businesses telling the public one story about their prosperity when the accounts tell a very different story. And sometimes we find that companies are hopelessly in arrears with their own accounts and compliance - which should give pause for thought to anyone thinking of doing business with them.
Take that facility away, and the business is getting the benefits of limited liability without fulfilling their part of the bargain. However much money that saves, it isn't fair on the public or on other businesses.
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