Self employed help

mumtothree1990

My husband is self employed and I do all of the paperwork, book keeping, website and advertising etc. Is he able to pay me say £60 a week for this? If so, is it as simple as me setting up as self employed and him declaring the money paid out as an expense on his tax return? He is a sole trader.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

thank you

Marcon

He needs to register for PAYE and employ you - HMRC won't swallow that you are self employed. Not nearly as scary as it sounds. See https://www.gov.uk/register-employer. HMRC provides excellent free payroll software you can download.

Whether he can pay you £60 a week depends on three things: whether his business earns enough to support that level of payment; whether you actually do enough to 'earn' it (and of course it must be at a least minimum wage...); and how good you are at negotiating!!

The cost of employing you then becomes a business expense like any other.

Savvy_Sue

He'll also need to pay you holiday pay and set up a pension plan for you, but it's really not that difficult to do any of this. If he has an accountant, worth getting advice from them. 

Marcon

Savvy_Sue said:

He'll also need to pay you holiday pay and set up a pension plan for you, but it's really not that difficult to do any of this. If he has an accountant, worth getting advice from them. 

Pension not required at this level of earnings, nor is employer required to contribute even if the employee asks to join a pension scheme. Whether it makes sense for OP to contribute to a pension is another matter, of course.

Petriix

You could legitimately be self employed if you offer the same services to other people as well. It's probably worth speaking to an accountant.

Marcon

Petriix said:

You could legitimately be self employed if you offer the same services to other people as well. It's probably worth speaking to an accountant.

Except OP clearly isn't doing that, added to which HMRC are much harder to convince when a 'client' is also a spouse.

Comms69

Is this for tax reasons?