Self-employed on the side

freelancer666

Afternoon all,

I've Googled for the answer I am looking for but have been unable to find anything so thought I would put it to you wonderful people:

I currently work full-time as a web developer. However over the past week or two I've had the opportunity to do some ongoing freelance work in the evenings and at weekends. Now, I know it is important to declare any extra income to the tax man right away but I was wondering if my current employer will find out?

My only fear is, as my freelance work is in the same industry they might get a bit funny.

Any advice would be great

Thanks in advance

fengirl_2

our current employer will not find out that you are also self employed - your tax aaffairs are private and HMRC are not allowed to discuss them with anyone else.
However, if your contract forbids outside work, you need to be mindful of the consequences.

PlutoinCapricorn

Many people top up the income from their main jobs with a bit extra that they earn from self employment. However, there are several potential problems, and conflict of interest is one of them. Would you actually be helping a competitor? What does your contract of employment say? In theory, what you do outside of working hours is your own business, but not when it might affect your main job.

Being so tired and distracted that you can't give your main employer their money's worth is another potential problem. This is unfair to the company that is your main source of income.

Using the main employer' facilities for outside work is another problem area.

These things do have a habit of getting around: you might get an email at work that someone else catches sight of.

mikey72

They will usually change your tax code as well, and your employer sees that. They don't need to know why though, it could just be a lot of offshore savings, or another source of income not related to them, like an ebay business.

PlutoinCapricorn

Tax codes usually get changed only when the self employed person elects to have tax owed from the self employment collected via PAYE. I think that you can only do that when the amount is approx. £2,000 or under.

Otherwise, PAYE tax and Self Assessment tax are separate and the employer will not learn about the SE in this way.

mrsyardbroom

My tax code didn't change when I became self employed as well as employed, but I did tell my employer what I was doing. They looked at my website and helped me to decide what might clash with my job. It's always wise to declare a conflict of interests with your employer before they find out for themselves, otherwise they can put a stop to it by handing you your P45.

fengirl_2

Mikey is incorrect - HMRC will not change yoour code number to collect the tax due on your self employment if you pay the tax direct. In any case, an employer is not notified of the make up of a code number, so they still wouldnt know.

carolbe

I'd suggest checking your contract with your employer to see if freelance work is allowed. I'm also a web developer by trade and half the team in my last web agency job was openly doing freelance work on the side. The company felt that the small clients the freelancers were working with weren't ever going to be the types of clients the company would go after, so there was no conflict. I was aware that other local agencies were quite different though and didn't permit their developers to do ANY freelance work.