Are you allowed to pay yourself for leaflet work?

WilliamO

Hi All,

If you are self-employed and deliver your own leaflets through peoples doors; are you allowed to pay yourself for these deliveries?

Also. If you did not want to deliver them yourself and instead asked a friend to deliver them; would you have to declare the money you paid to the friend? And if so, as what?.....a deliver expense for example? Also, would you be hiring that friend as an employee?....would they need to go "on the books as a worker of yours" or would it be viewed as a sort of favour your friend is doing for you? In other words, when would they need to be on the payroll (i.e. how many deliveries would they have to make before they would be classed as your part-time worker?).

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Regards

WilliamO

Slinky

How can you 'pay' yourself in any meaningful way - you'll be taking it out of one pocket and put it into another?

Sambucus_Nigra

Is it you in business or is it you doing the leafleting for a 'friend'?

antrobus

I suspect this is really a tax question

WilliamO wrote: »

If you are self-employed and deliver your own leaflets through peoples doors; are you allowed to pay yourself for these deliveries?

Well yes, but the money you earn for leaflet delivery will be just as taxable as the money you earn in self-employment, so what's the point?

WilliamO wrote: »

Also. If you did not want to deliver them yourself and instead asked a friend to deliver them; would you have to declare the money you paid to the friend? And if so, as what?.....a deliver expense for example? Also, would you be hiring that friend as an employee?....would they need to go "on the books as a worker of yours" or would it be viewed as a sort of favour your friend is doing for you? In other words, when would they need to be on the payroll (i.e. how many deliveries would they have to make before they would be classed as your part-time worker?).

Well, you could put payments for leaflet deliveries through your accounts as 'Casual Labour' or 'Leaflet deliveries' - given the kind of detail that is required these days on the self assessment tax return, no one but you and your accountant (if you have one) is going to see it anyway.

Technically speaking, if you pay anybody, anything, for some work, you should register as an employer, start applying PAYE etc. Practically speaking, if all you're going to do is bung someone the odd tenner now and again no one will really care one way or the other.

Notmyrealname

WilliamO wrote: »

Hi All,

If you are self-employed and deliver your own leaflets through peoples doors; are you allowed to pay yourself for these deliveries?

The profit after tax deductible expenses from the deliveries is your pay.

Also. If you did not want to deliver them yourself and instead asked a friend to deliver them; would you have to declare the money you paid to the friend? And if so, as what?.....a deliver expense for example?

No. You would be employing them and they would be entitled to pay at national minimum wage at the least and also holiday pay no matter how little they do. Depending on how much they earn you may also have to pay employers NI as well. NMW gets up to a real cost of over £8/hr real quick.