employment / self employment

telga, post: 9454 a écrit : question regarding freelancing - i'm thinking of going into freelance journalism and i understand the lines between employment and self employment are tenuous. what happens if i do work on a self employment basis, say, as a sole trader and declare my income, pay my tax etc but later the tax man decides that the terms i was working under were actually akin to employment? i know the 'employer' has to pay extra tax and NI but what happens with the 'worker'?

Provided you were working as a sole trader and not through your own Ltd Company, then you would have no liability - all the tax and NI would fall on the "employer", not you. BUT the "employer" in their contract with you may well have a clause to enable them to claw the additional tax and NI back from you, so be careful.

simonsjdaccountancy, post: 9470 a écrit : Provided you were working as a sole trader and not through your own Ltd Company, then you would have no liability - all the tax and NI would fall on the "employer", not you. BUT the "employer" in their contract with you may well have a clause to enable them to claw the additional tax and NI back from you, so be careful.

Right, thanks - that's handy to know.

I wanted to say thanks for the useful advice above - I also found it helpful.

I wonder if anyone can say where they have found the best sources of advice on this employment/self-employment issue. I know about the basics - but as well as being self-employed I also work part time managing a project in a small organisation that intends to work with a group of people in a freelance way. I'm probably needing to go the HMRC for definite advice - but they seem to want only to provide this in a formal way. I'm worried that once they get involved they may make up their mind one way or the other (whether people are employed or not) and that it may be hard to have them change their mind - whereas if we get things set up right in the first place...

Hi

I had this confusion when i started out.

**** CHECK OUT YOUR LOCAL INLAND REVENUE CENTRE THEY WILL HAVE A FREE COURSE ON "BECOMING SELF EMPLOYED". It covers all the basics you need and you can ask all the questions you need. Well worth it, also it's an introduction to your tax return.

In a nutshell if you always invoice your clients, you are a supplier and therefore fine to be self employed.

The inland revenue told me this themselves. So whatever you do, even if you work with other freelancers and pass work between you, always invoive for supply of services or contracted work.

There is an unwritten rule about making sure you dont spend more than 50% of your time with one client (as sometimes, and it's only if you get investigated, and if they decide to be picky) they will see it that you are therefore employed by that company, but nobody really knows how enforcable this is and how written in stone that is.

freelancing with others under one name

Hi,

I'm new to this site and new to freelancing.
I think my issues are similar to what's being discussed.
I'm currently working on a project for a client with another person, under a name we have given ourselves. We haven't yet registered freelance or as a company as I'm not sure what is the best option. The best way for me to explain it is that I would like to freelance and work alongside this other person on projects every now and then, but I don't want to set up as a fully fledged company. It means that we are both sources of potential business and we can share workload, but I only want to do this every now and then if big projects come our way. We would like to invoice our clients under our collective name (rather than an individual) and share the payment how we decide. Is this at all possible? I hope this makes sense.