Worked tax year 14-15 but have not registered

[Pigment84]

Hi, am hoping for some advice as I am really worried! I worked during the last tax year but didn't realise that I was supposed to register myself once I had started working. I thought that I just needed to register for tax up until 5th October of 2015. I am really worried I will be penalised because I have been working and have not registered. Any advice? Should I ring HMRC? Has anyone been fined for this?

Thank you - sleepless nights at the moment.

Presumably you mean self employed?
You used to have till the Oct following the end of the tax year to register then till 31 Jan of the next year (ie 2016) to file your return and pay tax.
The registering requirements have changed but not the tax return and payment dates.

Just get in touch with Hmrc asap, it will be fine. Technically you need to register as self employed within 3 months of starting to trade, or be subject to £100 fine, however I have never known this to actually be enforced. You will be issued with a tax reference number and then you have until 31 Jan 16 to submit your self assessment return online.

You have until October this year to register for the 2014/15 year. As long as you do it now, you'll be fine. You'll need to pay any money owed by January 2016.

Thanks for this; I'm hoping to increase my earnings beyond the trivial and keep procrastinating registering as self-employed because I was afraid of all this. So far I haven't been anywhere near even the self-employed NIC threshold.

There's nothing to be scared of. Registering as self employed takes literally one phone call.
The tax return is all online and is really easy to do.