Surely there must be an issue regarding your "employer's" tax issues, most notably that although you're freelance, if you only have one source of income, you are in effect an employee. Therefore, they should be registered as having you on their books using the PAYE system as opposed to you having to be personally accountable for your tax affairs. This puts the onus on them and I know that there are businesses out there who do just employ freelancers to escape that clause; if you were to seek enough other work to balance out (ie a 50:50-ish split), then you are not deemed to be working for an individual company and the above laws do not apply. So this goes a lot deeper than just asking for your NI requirements - this could lead to a full-on tax investigation on both sides...
...is anyone here taking a dip on their rate, or doing something else to boost their income? Work for me has all but dried up and now I'm looking for anything I can find and am literally having to whore myself out for a fraction of my usual rate!!!
I have regular clients who, when times are as they have been up until now, give me as much work as I can handle. However, with budgets being dramatically slashed (I do design and artwork for the retail sector), that work is no longer free-flowing and I need to do other stuff to make up the shortfall.
