> pay themselves through dividends (which have a much lower tax rate), which is now (highly controversially) illegal What on earth are you talking about... tak

> pay themselves through dividends (which have a much lower tax rate), which is now (highly controversially) illegal What on earth are you talking about... taking out dividends is not illegal, even for individual company owners. IR35 is about HMRC forcing self employed people to apply payroll taxes as if they were employed. Again, nothing to do with dividends.