Do you take dividends as income?

Your income can include dividend income from your business as long as:

• the dividend income is clearly related to your work activities
• the frequency of dividend payments must be of an established pattern, rather than irregular one-off payments.
• the dividends are paid from annual profits net of tax. If the dividends are higher than the profit figure, we will use the net profit figure instead.

Your income can also include dividends paid to your spouse or civil partner as long as they are also a shareholder, and they don't take over the running of the business. Any dividends paid to your spouse or civil partner must be appropriate for their level of shareholding, and must have been declared for tax purposes. However if your spouse or civil partner has used the same dividend income for their own income protection cover, it can't also be included in your income.