Google Adsense tax question

RachVG

(I hope this is the right section, I considered "up your income" but thought more of the tax experts would be here!)

Hi,
I'm in full time employment. I have a website which gets a decent amount of page impressions, but not amazing. I want to start running Google Adsense ads on the pages but was wondering about tax implications.

My friend has a similar website (they're fan websites for actors, so not in any way commercial, just hobbies) which she has been running for around three years, and she's only just reached the £60 threshold for payment. I think she should be registered as self employed, but she didn't think of that until I asked her about how she does it.

Should she have a) been signed up as self-employed since registering with adsense and declaring no earnings until this year when she can say she's had £60 b) been signed up as self-emplyed since registering with adsense and declaring the earnings despite not having received any payment yet or c) signed up as self-employed now and declaring £60 in next year's tax return (she's on about £58 now so won't actually receive payment until around Christmas)? Or none of the above?

I want to advise her of your responses but I mostly want to know the right way to go about it myself. I expect to earn at a similar rate, so I wouldn't be receiving payment for the forseeable future.

Also, I pay around £60 a year for web hosting/domain names (I run other websites from the account and wouldn't be advertising on these) - can I write this amount off (hosting account+this one domain name) as an expense of running the site?

On a similar note, when it comes to survey sites, if you choose to be paid in vouchers (HMV etc) do you have to declare that as income? What about Amazon Associates where you can earn Amazon vouchers by displaying referral links on your sites?

And finally, the reason I've started looking into ways to make money with my website - a company in America contacted me offering $25 a month to place a text link on my website to their website. They would pay via PayPal. I've checked out the company and they are legit, other people have had good experiences with them, but nobody seems to know the correct way to handle this with regards to tax.

Thanks.

Gertie_Walker

In reply to your questions:
a) No, she is just receiving casual fees so she should have just been telling HMRC at the end of each year how much she has earned. They wouldnt bother collecting the tax due on £60.
b)No
c)No
If your profits are up to £2500 a year, you can just notify HMRC of these earnings and they will either code out the profits (if you are on PAYE) or ask you to pay the tax. You would be below the class 2 NI limit.
Keep records of the amounts received in case you are challenged.