Hi

If you were keen to keep your business secret from your employer, then being a self-employed sole trader involves less information about you being publicly available than being a limited company.

Take a look at this page: www.brighton-accountants.com/blog/tax-self-employment-still-employed/.
------------------------
www.brighton-accountants.com

Hi tmk

there is nothing stopping you from trading or if you want to cover yourself, a hobby,
Being in full time work gives you a golden chance just to see if it can work, one bit of advice.
An Accountant is only as good as the paperwork you give them, starting out ,keep things simple and forget about an extra expense untill you think you need help.Buy yourself a simple VAT book to record your outlays and you can work out for yourself if you would need to register at any stage,

good luck

There's no reason why HMRC would inform your employer re your self-employment.

What might give the game away is either being listed as a company director in a limited company or if you are promoting the site using your own name. I know a few paranoid bosses who have google news alerts set up on their key employees so if they go "off message" or do something, erm, questionable, they know straight away.

However, the fact that you are wanting to keep this secret makes me think that you may have an employment issue which prevents you from competing with your existing employer - make sure you dig out your contract and look for anti-competition/disclosure clauses!

In terms of how you do it, it's perfectly possible to run a business full-time whilst working - you just need to make sure the phone is answered during business hours and that you follow up on work in the evenings/at weekends. Have a look on our site - there's loads of info about how you can do this!

Caroline
------------------------

Caroline Wylie

www.virtuallysorted.com

www.SocietyOfVirtualAssistants.co.uk

hello,

Yes its possible with carefull thought & consideration
you'll need someone to man the phones for you
if working from home a PO Box Address would be handy for correspondence and trading address

Trade as a sole trader initially if the business takes off then either employ others or consider going limited and leaving your employment

Use a trading name that cannot be tracked back to you, if you in fact do become limited as a company as long as you are not a director merely the majority shareholder then you should be able to keep it confidential
in fact a company using a trading name should be better also use a neutral address for the registered office

as stated in a previous posting beware of anti competition clauses in your contract of employment

All in all its possible then all you have to worry about is the taxman

As an accountant of 25+yrs standing I can assist you with that if you wish to contact me please feel free to do so

PK Business Services
office@pkps.demon.co.uk