Rightly or wrongly, limited companies in the UK provide a high degree of protection for wrongdoing. Defrauding HMRC out of hundreds of thousands of pounds and suffering no consequence is happening day in day out. An Ofcom fine is nothing by comparison.
2. Doesn't the fact that simple legal manoeuvring can be used to dodge 99% of this law make the law (and laws like it) farcical on its face? Merely an elaborate set of extra hoops that only serves to punish the naive, while increasing everyone's compliance costs?
Does the UK have a similar concept?
Does this in practice mean that the original human person would have to pay that fine? What would the consequences likely be for the original human person?
If those consequences remain severe, then it's not a simple legal manoeuvre after all. This reduces farcicality, but also means there's no way for an individual to safely run this kind of website.
If those consequences round to zero, my next question would be: Can a large company spin up a CIC just to shield itself in the same way? (If so, it seems the farce would be complete.)
The Online safety bill gives Ofcom the power to levy regulatory fines, not criminal sanctions, so is very different
Filing accounts: £15. An online form will ask you for your balance sheet summary only unless you are very large.
One off registration:£65
Annual confirmation statement:£34
So depends on your perspective I suppose.
You have to keep accounts if a business even if not incorporated. A company has to keep accounts if it has any assets (e.g. a domain) or any financial transactions (e.g. paying for hosting)
You will also probably have to file a tax return. You have to keep a register of shareholders.
In fact if definitely not making a profit a standard ltd might be simpler (or maybe a company limited by guarantee) then a CIC as all a CIC does it add restrictions and extra regulation https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7b800640f0b...
Indeed, so this cost is not relevant to the decision to set up a CIC or not
