tax advice needed - small business and how they paid me

[balloongoespop]

I am doing a tax return for some extra work I did for a small business. They need the Employer' s PAYE/tax reference. I don't have this - I know I could get it by asking them.

My question is - will this small business get in trouble for not giving me any paperwork? They just asked me to give them an invoice and then put the money in my bank account. I'm not sure they are expecting me to pay tax (they paid me below minimum wage). Will there be any comeback for them in how they employed or paid me? What about national insurance?

It doesn't sound like you were employed but self-employed. This means you were a business invoicing them and it's up to you to pay any taxes due. If you do this regularly then this is your sole trader income. If it was a one-off you may be able to enter it as other income on your tax return. Either way the tax (if any) will be paid by you through your tax return.

NI may not be due, depending on whether you're actually self-employed.

I am surprised at this. You were self employed when you did that work? I do work on a self employed basis for hundreds of clients a year and all that goes on the tax return is the global figure for my receipts.

Are you saying you were their employee? Why would you be their employee? May be you are filling in the wrong page on the return. You need to fill in the self employed and business page.

Help, I'm not sure if I fit the definition for 'self'employed'. I have another job which is my salary - tax for that is paid through my employer. This other job was just a few hours a month which they paid me for.

it is not my sole trader income. It wasn't even very much money (£600 in the year).

You can be both employed and self-employed at the same time. There are many rules to establishing your employment status but for £600 a year I would just treat it as self-employment. If it was a one-off thing you could put it to other income but it sounds like it was more than once over the period of a year, just not for very much money at a time. Therefore it sounds more like employment/self-employment than other income.

Yes, I agree. When I was employed I also had self employed income so filled out both of those pages on the tax return. Remember to claim any expenses against that self employed income too like stationery or some of the electrici ty at home or whatever those other expenses were for that work There is space on the self employed page of the tax form to set out your costs and expenses too whcih are deducted before they work out what tax you pay on the resulting reduced figure.

It does sound like you were working on a self employed basis. You do need to register yourself with HMRC as self-employed and usually would have to pay class 2 NI however seeing as you only earned £600 I think you would be able to apply for an exception for the NI.

You were self employed, in which case it's your responsibility to register as such with HMRC and they will then ask you to pay Class2 NIC. I invoice my clients, they pay me by BACS, I put it on my tax return. All done.