£300m cost of 'dormant' companies

SCOTTISH firms could save up to £300 million by getting rid of dormant company structures, accountancy group PwC said yesterday.

Maintaining dormant companies amounts to 156m per year in "wasted cost" to Scotland.

If firms were to rationalise their structures to eliminate such companies and remove a further 10 per cent of the "non-value active" companies, the savings could easily increase to over 300m, claimed PwC.

It argued that now was the time to act, ahead of moves by the Accounting Standards Board to move the UK accounting framework to International Financial Reporting Standards, which will affect 100,000 firms registered in Scotland and increase compliance costs.