Agree with Kate, you have to notify HMRC if you have an additional source of income when you start to freelance. You are eligible to pay income tax when your income exceeds £6,475 per year for 2009-2010. However if you have secondary source of income, by setting up a limited company and start drawing salary, then there are chances that you will be taxed at a higher rate. Its also worth checking your employment contract to check if you can freelance and earn outside your employment. But, we are not scaring you away from freelancing:happy, just the fact that it gets a little complicated when you are employed and try to freelance. Also worth checking out various kinds of freelancing either through sole propertiership or through limited company.
I understand that you are freelancing, not registered nor have a limited company, if this is the case you cannot reclaim the VAT on the expenses, moreover if you have done your course much earlier or a while ago, your company or whoever sponsored the course would have used the receipt to claim their VAT, if they filing returns monthly or quarterly, it would have been reported to HMRC.
