Becoming self employed

PokerFace_2

Hi,

I have been working for my current employer for almost 6 years in the telecoms industry and work in sales.. I have been offered the option of becomg self employed and working from home rather than being an office based employee and this appeals to me a lot but I was wondering if there were any drwabacks?

As part of thsi I woudl have to set up a company that I woudl then use to invoice my existing supplier for consultancy payments which woudl replace my wages, I have been told that ther are potentially rules and regs around doing this and that you have to invoice more than one company?? is this true?

Also I would see benefits of being able to buy things that are then tax deductable as business expenses, all seems good but would like to know of anyone elses experiences of thsi kind of thing..

Any comments gratefully recieved!!

jessicamb

it has its benefits but your biggest risk is that you go from a guaranteed income to no guaranteed income dont you? At the minute you would have the right to redundancy payments and possibly pension contributions that you would lose if you went self employed.

PlutoinCapricorn

Being your own boss, working from home and reducing your tax bill by offsetting expenses against your income may seem an attractive idea. However, you get none of the usual employee benefits such as paid holidays, sick pay, guaranteed monthly income or redundancy payments etc, so are expected to charge a lot more than employees get to cover breaks in work.

Deciding to set up as a Sole Trader is one thing, being offered a chance to work for your employer on a self employed basis and needing to create a company or use an umbrella company to bypass the IR35 regulations or similar is something else. Many employers are trying to escape their obligations and reduce costs by asking their staff to work on a self employed basis, but HMRC has been blocking loopholes. Would your employer agree to paying you much more for consultancy than you are getting now? If not, you may be getting the worst of both worlds. Does your employer know about HMRC's rules - see their website - on whether someone who works for them is really self-employed?

I hope that you will get more help from people in a similar situation soon, but it is a big decision to make so you need to think about all the angles.

Corbin

Getting started in your own moneymaking work-at-home home business is more appealing today than ever before. Searching for the home business that really works can be a frustrating endeavo.