Dormant company, never paid taxes, never traded in UK - should I have notified the HMRC?
You don't have to register for corporation tax until you start doing business: After you’ve registered your company with Companies House, you’ll need to register it for Corporation Tax. You’ll need to do this within 3 months of starting to do business. Since you haven't needed to do that yet, there also shouldn't be any need to tell HMRC you've stopped trading. So it should just be a question of telling Companies House - I guess it's possible they'll first want you to provide the missing accounts.
"What theyre fishing for is whether the money was earned in the U.S.  It's essentially an interest shelter, and/or avoiding double taxation.   They're saying if you keep income you make outside the US in a bank inside the US, the US thanks you for storing your foreign money here and doesn't tax the interest (but the nation where you earned that income might).   There is no question that the AirBNB income is ""connected with a US trade or business"".   So your next question is whether the fraction of interest earned from that income can be broken out, or whether IRS requires you to declare all the interest from that account.   Honestly given the amount of tax at stake, it may not be worth your time researching.   Now since you seem to be a resident nonresident alien, it seems apparent that whatever economic value you are creating to earn your salary, is being performed in the United States. If this is for an American company and wages paid in USD, no question, that's a US trade or business. But what if it's for a Swedish company running on Swedish servers, serving Swedes and paid in Kroner to a Swedish bank which you then transfer to your US bank? Does it matter if your boots are on sovereign US soil?  This is a complex question, and some countries (UK) say ""if your boots are in our nation, it is trade/income in our nation""... Others (CA) do not.  This is probably a separate question to search or ask. To be clear, the fact that your days as a teacher or trainee do not count toward residency, is a separate question from whether your salary as same counts as US income." "Directors can be held responsible for the liabilities of the corporation - see this Wikipedia article - and especially if it was clear that was the reason for the arrangement, you might well find this happening. That said, I know a Canadian who sold his house to a corporation he already owned (he was doing consulting work through it) at the (in his opinion ridiculously high) amount it had been assessed for property tax purposes. The company paid and claimed any and all expenses including paying for the lawn to be mowed and the house to be painted. He lived in it at a reduced rent (this rent was then income to the company) in exchange for looking after it. He was very happy with the arrangement. He was losing the ""no income tax when you sell your primary residence"" benefit we have here, but since he expected to never be able to sell it for more than the amount the company had paid, he wasn't worried. If the company exists for no reason other than to shelter income, hide you from liability, and reduce your taxes, then I would expect it would get you some unwanted attention and possibly some rulings you didn't like. If the company exists for a real purpose, and has income and expenses that outweigh whatever games you're playing with cars and homes, you might be able to achieve this. You need to work out what the benefits (other than ducking liabilities) would be and whether they are worth the hassle." "Answers to your questions: (1) Do bank account numbers have a checksum. NO. (2) Is it plausible that they found out your number after sending you the money by ""accident"". NO. There is no way to find out who possesses a particular bank account just by the number. Also, how they even know they made a mistake? They targeted you and knew who you were and your bank account number before the ""money"" was sent. (3 and 4) Is this a scam? YES. They never paid you any money. They forged a check for a large amount and deposited it in an account. Then divided it up, wiring pieces to multiple people, all of whom they investigated beforehand. Since it is a bank to bank transfer it clears. Once the forgery is discovered, all the transfers will be unwound. If you had sent them money, you would have lost that money. Other things to note: There is zero chance of a wire transfer going to the wrong person because the sender has to list the name and address on the account as well as the number. You basically did the right thing which is to notify your bank that you received an unauthorized transfer into your account. Never accept money into your account from someone you don't know. If money ""appears"" in your account tell the bank it is an error and probably proceeds from a forgery and they will take care of it." In principle, when you are the sole owner of a limited company, and also the sole employee, then it is much easier to assume that someone else is the employee. Let's say your twin brother John Adler.  John Adler receives a salary from David Adler's company. Of course John has to pay income tax on his salary. Absolutely in the UK, and in Estonia as well if they have any sensible tax laws at all (which I assume but don't know for sure).  Then there is the company. It's profit equals revenue, minus cost. You said £4000 revenue, and John Adler's salary, plus anything the company has to pay on top of the salary, is cost, which is subtracted from the revenue to calculate profit. In the UK, the company pays 20% corporation tax on those profits, and the rest stays in its bank account (or may be in goods that the company purchased).  Where does David Adler come in? He owns the company, but doesn't work for it and gets no salary. He owns the company, but he does not own the company's money. He can't just help himself to the money. He can get a loan from the company, and is personally responsible for repaying that loan. If it's not repaid, HMRC will be very angry which will hurt. Or he can pay himself a dividend, and pays dividend tax on it. Or of course he can leave the money in the company.  That's exactly how it works in the UK, and I would assume Estonia to be similar. And of course if it's not the twin brother who is the employee, but the OP himself, then the situation is exactly the same. It will depend on how much you expect to earn this way, and whether you expect the company to become profitable soon. Has the company just not made a profit yet, or has it actually made a significant loss that your invoices would just be offsetting? If you're earning over £10,000 per year then invoicing through the company is preferable. Above that level, you'd be taking money from the company as dividends after paying 20% corporation tax with no other tax to pay on your personal tax return. As a sole trader you'd be paying 20% income tax and 9% NI. (Note however that the company can only pay dividends from profits, which is a problem if there are significant losses to offset.) Below £10,000, there's little difference. Through the company, you can take a salary of £7956 per year without paying any income tax or NI. With the new £2000 discount on employers' NI you could then take salary up to £10,000 and just pay 12% employee's NI. As a sole trader, you pay 9% Class 4 NI over £7956 and a fixed £143 per year for Class 2 NI. Paying 9% rather than 12% saves you £60, but then you add the £143. In practice the company would work out more expensive at this level because you'll probably want to pay an accountant to deal with the payroll for you. Having the company repay your £2000 from the invoices doesn't really save any tax if the company will become profitable in the future. You don't pay any tax now since the money you receive isn't income, and the company doesn't pay any tax if the extra £2000 of revenue doesn't put it back in profit. However, if the company is profitable next year then it will have an extra £2000 of profit that would otherwise have been offset against this year's loss, and you do end up paying 20% corporation tax on the £2000. You could still have the company repay the loan in order to delay the tax liability, but it's not really tax free money. Loaning additional money to the company has no tax benefit, you just give the company £1000 and get your original £1000 back later. You pay no tax and neither does the company, but it was your money in the first place. You should not open a company unless and until you want to continue operating your company for the longer term. If it is only for a year so so, refrain from opening a company. I am an IT contractor and operate through a limited company. Believe me it isn't that difficult to operate through a limited company. If you are afraid of doing your books, get an accountant and he will do it for you. Should not cost you more than a £1000 - 1500 or so. Regarding what you can claim as an expense, it depends on how you can confirm that the expenses you incurred are for the company. Your accountant can help you out on that. If you claim false expenses and are caught, you have to forgo a lot to the HMRC.  Google is the best option, there are loads of sites which can help you on that. I wrote about this in another answer: You can sell the scrip dividend in the market; the capital gain from this sale may fall below the annual tax-free allowance for capital gains, in which case you don't pay any capital gains tax on that amount. For a cash dividend, however, there isn't a minimum taxable amount, so you would owe dividend tax on the entire dividend (and may therefore pay more taxes on a cash dividend). Since you haven't sold the shares in the market yet, you haven't earned any income on the shares. You don't owe taxes on the scrip until you sell the shares and earn capital gains on them. HMRC is very explicit about this, in CG33800: It is quite common for a company, particularly a quoted company, to offer its shareholders the option of receiving additional shares instead of a cash dividend. The expression `stock or scrip dividend' is used to describe shares issued in such circumstances. The basic position under tax law is that when a company makes a bonus issue of shares no distribution arises, and the bonus issue of shares is not income for tax purposes in the hands of the recipient. Obviously, if this is an issue for you, talk to a tax professional to make sure you get it right. "Life would be nicer had we not needed lawyers. But for some things - you better get a proper legal advice. This is one of these things. Generally, the United States is a union of 50 different sovereign entities, so you're asking more about Texas, less about the US. So you'd better talk to a Texas lawyer. Usually, stock ownership is only registered by the company itself (and sometimes not even that, look up ""street name""), and not reported to the government. You may get a paper stock certificate, but many companies no longer issue those. Don't forget to talk to a lawyer and a tax adviser in your home country, as well. You'll be dealing with tax authorities there as well. The difference between ""unoted"" (never heard of this term before) and ""regular"" stocks is that the ""unoted"" are not publicly traded. As such, many things that your broker does (like tax statements, at source withholding, etc) you and your company will have to do on your own. If your company plans on paying dividends, you'll have to have a US tax ID (ITIN or SSN), and the company will have to withhold the US portion of the taxes. Don't forget to talk to a tax adviser about what happens when you sell the stock. Also, since the company is not publicly traded, consider how will you be able to sell it, if at all."