I may have screwed up my self-assessment for the past 5 years, advice?

MDChristie

Years ago I was self employed and continued to be for a while after I took full time employment, even after changing jobs I continued to do some weekend contracting for previous employers but it was rarely any significant income.
More recently this has dwindled down to not even £100 a month from some old apps I made and I finally completed the form to de-register as self employed. I thought that would be the end of it.

This morning I received a letter from HMRC saying theirs records indicate I stopped being self employed back in May 2011 - even though I've filled a self assessment tax return every year since then!
What I've not been paying since then is NI contributions (except what I pay via PAYE), I think I may have stopped paying these in May 2011 when I stopped being properly self employed but for some reason I didn't stop paying self assessment income tax.

Given that I've filled a return and paid the tax since May 2011 I don't think I claim this was by mistake and get the tax back, but I really don't want a bill for class 2/4 NI to cover the past 6 years. Do I need to pay class 2/4 if I'm already paying class 1? Is the £5,965 class 2 threshold counted only on self-employed income (excluding my regular employment income which I've paid NI class 1 for).

Am I likely to get investigated by HMRC over this?

booksurr

"If you’re employed and self-employed
You might be an employee but also do self-employed work. In this case your employer will deduct your Class 1 National Insurance from your wages, and you have to pay Class 2 and 4 payments for your self-employed work.

How much you pay depends on your combined income from all your jobs. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will let you know how much National Insurance is due after you’ve filed your Self Assessment tax return."

https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance/how-much-you-pay