2 Self Employed Businesses Under 1 Name

kompendium

Hi, I was wondering if anyone could offer me some advice on the following:

I'm a student in my final year of a web design degree. I want to become self employed designing websites and offering web marketing services. This will hopefully be my main line of business but I would also like to buy some products from a wholesaler and start an online shop.

I am aware that I need to register as self-employed with hmrc and one of the things they will ask for is a trading name. I would like to have my main trading name for the design business as '????? Web Services' but that wouldn't be a good name for an online shop. My question is, can I get away with having the one trading name and including all my profits/costs for the online shop with the profits/costs for the web design business, as I'd like to just fill in the one self-employed form.

I know I can register two trading names and fill in two forms but I'd rather just have one if that would be ok. I wouldn't want my online shop to be called '????? Web Services' so I was thinking I could say something on invoices such as '??????? Shop is operated by ??????? Web Services, a trading name of mynamehere'. I don't want to start a ltd company at this time but would consider it in the future.

I hope this makes sense and that someone may be able to offer some advice. Thanks in advance!

earthstorm

well if you are going to be a sole trader it will be YOURNAME T/A ***** WEB SERVICES.

you just need to register under ***** WEB SERVICES and then for your online shop just have the shop name/brand logo and in the footer place something like 'part of *** web services.'

paddyrg

'????? Web Services' - on first skim reading I thought that was the literal name of the business... Quite mysterious and catchy...

Self employed you'll be you t/a trading name anyway, all your finances muddled in with your personal spending and purchases as far as most tax purposes are concerned. If you want a separate body corporate, you would register a limited company, probably not worth it for you at this stage but it has advantages as you grow.

pooch

kompendium wrote: »

Hi, I was wondering if anyone could offer me some advice on the following:

I'm a student in my final year of a web design degree. I want to become self employed designing websites and offering web marketing services. This will hopefully be my main line of business but I would also like to buy some products from a wholesaler and start an online shop.

I am aware that I need to register as self-employed with hmrc and one of the things they will ask for is a trading name. I would like to have my main trading name for the design business as '????? Web Services' but that wouldn't be a good name for an online shop. My question is, can I get away with having the one trading name and including all my profits/costs for the online shop with the profits/costs for the web design business, as I'd like to just fill in the one self-employed form.

I know I can register two trading names and fill in two forms but I'd rather just have one if that would be ok. I wouldn't want my online shop to be called '????? Web Services' so I was thinking I could say something on invoices such as '??????? Shop is operated by ??????? Web Services, a trading name of mynamehere'. I don't want to start a ltd company at this time but would consider it in the future.

I hope this makes sense and that someone may be able to offer some advice. Thanks in advance!

No they don't. You are not obligated to have a separate trading name (you are the person who will be taxed), but if you want a trading name as well, you can advise HMRC of that in box 14

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/cwf1.pdf

This helpsheet might help you too

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/helpsheets/hs220.pdf

nzmegs

I do lots of different things all under the same banner of "me". As long as you pay tax on all your earnings, it doesn't really matter.