Corporate Munificence: Beware

Using your private company to make charitable donations can be sensible and tax-efficient: donations are simply deducted in arriving at taxable profit, circumventing the administrative complexities of Gift Aid; and you avoid the inefficiency of making personal donations out of remuneration that has previously suffered NIC.

But what if you want to use your private company to distribute largesse other than to charities?

The first hurdle may be a legal one: dissentient shareholders or creditors may legitimately object if you disburse the assets of a company on a whim.  But in practice that difficulty may, for many private companies, be more theoretical than real.  Moving on...