I owe tax and don't want to keep it quiet

mrclean22

I was in full time education until June 2007, and earned very little money during that time anyway so presume I didn't have to pay taxes. Since June 07 I have had two full time jobs, and I have been on 'basic rate' tax code for both.

The first job, which we'll call Mail-job, was from July 07 - Oct '07. My gross earning was £1890, but the agency I worked for took tax and NI contributions to give me a net pay of £1602.03.

The second job, which I've been in since February, we'll call Data-job. Gross pay to date £1131. Net pay after tax and NI £811.52.

I have also received income from two other companies I have done website work for in my free time. These have not deducted tax and NI at source, and so I think I must owe some money to the taxman.

The first we'll call Bigger-site. For this I send an invoice to the company, and they pay me by cheque. Three occasions I've done this (July 07, December 07, Feb 08), coming to a total of £929.80.

Call the second Footy-site. I'm on a contract to update a company's website for them, and I get paid on a scale of how many hits the site gets, on a quarterly basis. I received £1047.11 in Aug 07, £1346.47 in Oct 07, and £893.67 in Jan 08, totalling £3287.25.

I think they're all the details there are to give. Now I clearly don't know the first thing about tax (you don't get taught things like that in school or university), so I don't know if there's a threshold you're allowed to earn under and not pay tax for, or when tax years run from-until, or if I need to be set up as a company or self-assessed for my out-of-hours website work, or what tax code I should be on for the full time jobs. I need help and advice, and figure that the nice people of this board are the best place to start

fengirl_2

Your tax liability is about £200 for the current year, based on what you have said. You are therefore due a tax refund.
Your main problem is that you have not notified HMRC that you are working for yourself as a web designer and there is potentially a penalty for not doing so. You dont need to set up a company for the web design as you are not employing staff and, presumably, are not leasing premises, so you are not exposed to any personal risks financially.
I would go to www.hmrc.gov.uk and download the form to register as self employed asap. You will be sent a self assessment after 5 April on which you need to show all your income and the tax refund will arrive as soon as they get round to processing it. If you are charged a penalty you can try pleading ignorance, otherwise, I would bite the bullet.
You also need to get off code BR on your employed job. Ask your employer for a form P46 and sign this to state this is your only or main job - you will be put on to 522L from 6 april - if your employer has a problem with this contact your tax office and ask them to intervene.

HelzBelz

Definitely agree with Fengirl, register as self employed especially if you're planning on continuing with the 2 site jobs, they'll be able to give you advice and you should be able to do the application over the phone the numbers: 0845 9 15 45 15 (spot the self employed person who has all her paperwork out at the moment)

mrclean22

OK I will go ahead and try registering as self-employed. If I do that, am I able to claim expenses?

I did fill in a P46 form when I started my current job (Data-job) in February. Does that mean my tax code will automatically change (to 522L) from 6th April?

Tipustyger

I did some freelance admin work for a while and registered as self-employed later than HMRC expected. However, I got something called a small earnings exemption which meant I didn't have to pay NI if I didn't want because I was only earning £2500 a year from freelance. This meant that the late penalty was waived so you may be ok.

I would defnitely recommend that you complete your tax return online. It is so quick and so much easier than the paper version as you won't have lots of extra sections of questions that aren't relevant. Also, the tax calculation is done automatically for you so you don't have to worry about not knowing anything about tax codes, allowances. That way you can see straight away how much you owe or are owed and you can make payments online.

I would just get on the website and contact the relevant people to register as self-employed. It is all quite easy but make take a few weeks. Good luck.

mrclean22

I tried registering for Self Assessment online but don't have a Unique Taxpayer Reference number, which is required. I tried ringing my local tax office (Manchester) but couldn't get through. Eventually spoke to someone on the number listed as 'Self Assessment Helpline - West Hampshire' on saynoto0870, and they said they'd post the forms to me, and this would have my UTR number on it. They said this will take a couple of weeks.

Is there a simpler way to just get my UTR number and register online to save time? Does it make a difference whether I get it done before 6th April or not?

Also, can anyone answer my previous post?

Tipustyger

It can take a while, mine took several months. Don't know the answer to your previous post, sorry, but I would think so.

Tarasam

mrclean22 wrote: »

Eventually spoke to someone on the number listed as 'Self Assessment Helpline - West Hampshire' on saynoto0870, and they said they'd post the forms to me, and this would have my UTR number on it. They said this will take a couple of weeks

Hi,

It'll take that long because you havent rang your tax office you've probably gone through on an specific overseas line, we see a lot of this from the sayno to 0870, had you rang your own office they would have put it in the post today for you and it would have arrived a lot quicker, more than likely the person you spoke to had to email your office to send it out therefore causing a delay.

Sorry but with HMRC using any landline number can invariably take longer to get a result, but granted will be cheaper.

Kelly

mrclean22

I did try my local tax office first but was being kept on hold, and I was having to use my mobile to ring their 0845 number, so after a while and wasted credit I gave up.

Am I up against any deadline? (April 6th?) I obviously won't hang around once I've got the forms anyway.

fengirl_2

You have 3 months from starting self employment in which to register. I thought you could print off the form from HMRC's website, fill it in and post it off?

mrclean22

Just rung the same number again that told me last time they were sending the self-assessment forms to me. The person I spoke to this time said there was no reason why they would be sending me the forms and I must speak to my local tax office in Manchester. How annoying. Good job I phoned to check.

I'll have to go to my tax office on my day off to sort it out and be sure if something's being done or not.

How hard do they make it to declare?