solfer started this topic @ 20:27 on 03/10/2004
Hi,
I'm looking for advice on the following...
I'm a full-time employee, (and have been for the past 22 years), with zero experience of self-employment and all the tax issues etc etc which come with it. I've recently designed and hosted few websites for friends and friends of friends, with a few other potentials in the pipeline.
Obviously any money earned from this is liable to tax, so I guess I should be speaking to the IR about that?
My main question is what do I need to do to be able to legitimately invoice any future 'clients'? Do I need to register a business and can I do this even if I'm employed full-time elsewhere?
As much as I'd like it to, this isn't going to enable me to jack in the day job, so it's purely going to be part-time evenings & weekends work for some extra "pocket money".
Interested to hear from anyone else whos' has gone down this full-time + part-time route and how they've gone about it.
Thanks,
Sol.
RE: advice on part time working
James Smith | 04/10/2004 08:53 AM
Sol,
You will be pleased to here it really is quite straight forward having two incomes.
The easiest thing to do is to register as a "sole trader" by ringing the Inland Revenue dedicated line on 08459 15 45 15.
On thing to watch is if you total annual profits are going to be under £4745 in which case you DONT need to pay additional National Insurance contributions of £2.05 per week. Make sure you tell them what your profit is likely to be so you dont pay the NI if you don’t need to.
Once you have done this you will get a tax return sent out to you each year on which you will declare your income and expenses. If you need some help with this I do some low priced returns for micro businesses to ensure you fill in all the right boxes and claim back all the expenses you are entitled to.
Given you are quite a simple business your record keeping should be quite straight forward and a simple list of items on excel would be suitable.
If things go well you could start up a limited company, but this is not really suitable unless you are earning at least 15-20k in profits and I am presuming from your post you are nowhere near this level.
Hopefully this will give you a flavour of where you need to go next
Regards,
------------------------
James Smith
Chartered Accountant
www.jamesesmith.co.uk
01235 536 773
---------------------------
Your indispensable guide to Small Business Bookkeeping, Self-Assessment & VAT
RE: RE: advice on part time working
solfer | 04/10/2004 11:52 AM
James,
Many thanks for the reply - that's extremely helpful and gives me a much better understanding of where I need to be going.
With reference to the tax return - would this only be applicable to my part-time income, or would it also apply to my full-time income?
Have saved your url for future reference. Thanks again.
Regards,
Sol
RE: RE: advice on part time working
solfer | 05/10/2004 07:16 PM
James,
Thank you - email on its way!
As a follow up to my initial post, I was wondering if there would be any value (or potential problem) if it were my wife who registered as the sole trader? She currently only works part time and earns less than £4745.
Regards,
Sol
RE: RE: advice on part time working
solfer | 06/10/2004 12:58 PM
Oh well, just a thought! Thanks for putting me straight James. Thanks also for the spreadsheet - it's much appreciated.
