working. a lot. and not declaring income for tax

[bebbeau]

i don't want to give too many details as i have not NC

but a good friend of mine is doing work cash in hand. an awful lot of it, to the extent she has had to rope in another friend to help her. i know she is not declaring it.

her "business" is all over fb, it has a name, a page, and everything...she is snowed under with work and i can't believe how brazen she is being. she has 4 dcs, if she gets caught she will be right in the shit. it would only take one person on her fb friends (and she has about a 1000) to get annoyed with it and make a call to hmrc

i daren't say anything to her, as if she does end up getting dobbed in i would not want her to think its me. but it doesn't sit right with me....i have been self employed for years and have been meticulous from the start about keeping everything above board

anyway just wanted to see what others think. i can't talk about it to anyone in RL for obvious reasons.

I thought they were going to start targeting this kind of things - builders etc

Start targeting? They do target them! :) they have whole units devoted to rootling out income tax and VAT evaders. But those units don't have enough people in them. Or enough resources to chase the baddies. And politically there's pressure to go after the 'big guys' which is more resource intensive and offers less probable reward (but much bigger possible reward).

If it's cleaning or something like that, she isn't employing someone. She's sharing work with them. She also won't be making a fortune. Yes she should pay tax/NI but some posters are really overcomplicating this

If she owns a business, cannot cope with it alone and is therefore paying some one to do work for that business, they are not "helping her out". She is employing them

There was a thing on the BBC saying they were going to put more resources into chasing this group.

Well not necessarily Christmas. She may have thought that she could not cope and so asked someone else to go into partnership with her. Far too much speculation on this thread of what may and may not be based on relatively few actual facts from OP.

I 'share' work with a cleaner. I do not employ her the key things are:
She invoices me
she has the right to substitute (she does sometimes)
She is registered as self employed with hmrc
she provides her own equipment
I cannot make her wear uniform dictate working practices etc etc
I do not make money from her I am merely able to meet obligations whilst I build up my business. In the new year I will employ someone paye that will be a whole new ballgame!

Oh and she works for other clients