National Insurance for both employed and self-employed

ewingoil81 wrote: »

I've been looking at turning a hobby into a part time job. I'm currently working full time and i'm a little unsure about what national insurance I need to pay on my self employed part time profit. I'm expecting my profit next year to be about £3-4k, will I need to take my paye income into account when working out my national insurance so will be tier 4 or do I not count my employed wages and only count my self-employed income so I will be tier 2?

Sorry if I seem like I'm rambling but there is a lot of unclear information on the internet and I like knowing what I'm talking about before I speak to the tax office. Thanks

employment and self employment are considered separately as they each have totally distinct NI

employed people pay class 1 on their salary/earnings

self employed people pay class 2 and class 4 on their SE profits

if you are both employed and self employed then you can end up paying NI on both sources of income, but at the rate applicable to that specific source. You don't mix them up like you seem to think

the key for self employed people is you are only "forced" to (ie your tax return will tell you that you must) pay class 2 and class 4 if your profits are above £6,025 per year (17/18 threshold). Below that level you can voluntarily pay it if you wish, but as you will still be employed, and thus your class 1 will "give" you all your state pension and other benefits credits, there would be no point in so doing
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tax-and-tax-credit-rates-and-thresholds-for-2017-18/tax-and-tax-credit-rates-and-thresholds-for-2017-18

PS class 2 will be abolished wef 6 April 2019
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/abolition-of-class-2-national-insurance-contributions/abolition-of-class-2-national-insurance-contributions