Dipping toe into self-employed

lovelylass_2

I'm currently working full time in the Public Sector.  My skill set is project management/Executive Assistant and sorting out chaos!  I'm thinking about becoming a Virtual Assistant but cant afford to give up my full time job due to debts.  So I was wondering if anyone could offer some advice on how I go about doing my full time job whilst starting to dip my toe into the VA world and what I would need to do to stay within the HMRC rules with tax etc?

Dakta

Loads of info dotted about how to work self employed, ie (cant vouch for it but plenty of similar articles too) - https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/work/self-employment/tax-and-national-insurance-when-youre-self-employed

You don't need to delcare self employed until you hit the £1000 income mark, thoguh you do need to keep records so you can experiment a bit and see if it works for you before comitting.

Regarding your current employment, it's possible to do both in a paperwork capacity - I used to allocate my tax free allowance to my main employment and tax  on all my self employed profits (we're going back some though). 

The main thing to do, and this might slip by the wayside, but do check your employment contract to see if you are permitted to work self employed/a second job. it wasn't too much hassle at my current and past employers but i did have to notify management and fill out a conflict of interest assessment 

Marcon

lovelylass_2 said:

I'm currently working full time in the Public Sector.  My skill set is project management/Executive Assistant and sorting out chaos!  I'm thinking about becoming a Virtual Assistant but cant afford to give up my full time job due to debts.  So I was wondering if anyone could offer some advice on how I go about doing my full time job whilst starting to dip my toe into the VA world and what I would need to do to stay within the HMRC rules with tax etc?

See https://www.gov.uk/browse/business

As mentioned above, do check if you are allowed to do this under your current terms of employment. Also be aware that you aren't likely to get many takers in the UK for a VA who can only work outside normal working hours or at weekends. Looking further afield might get you better results - but there will also be problems such as languages, time differences, and other issues.

Plenty of stuff on the internet if you google effectively - worth a chat with a few agencies who are advertising such roles and could give you an honest appraisal of whether you're likely to be in demand.