First venture into self employment... allowable expenses

[buzzing]

Hello all

I hope you can help me out with what is probably a very straight forward question, but the HMRC website & google aren't helping me right now.

I am in employment but have just taken on a side job for my chairman for which he is paying me directly.

To perform this role, I work at home, using the internet etc. I understand that I can claim part of my utilities bills as a business expense, but what about the internet / phone line - do I apply the same proportion to the actual cost, ie. work out how many hours work I do, and take that proportion of the bill? Can I claim the whole bill?

It is unlikely that I will take on any other self employed work, and I don't currently complete a self assessment form, so I am keen to keep this as simple, but above board, as possible.

Additionally, I started in November, what time scale do I have for registering as self employed?

I'm not sure you are actually self employed to be honest ( by HMRC guidelines).
Being SE is not a choice and working for 1 person doesn't necessarily make you SE

you cannot be employed and self employed for the same company in HMRCs eyes

why does your chairman want to restrict your employment rights in this way?

It is very common to do one sort of work for an employer and something totally different as a self employed person eg if I were a doctor but also played the trumpet someone who worked at the hospital might hire me at the weekend to play. That would not mean I was an employee. Lots of people do bits of self employed work out of work hours which are nothing to do with work such as football coaching, babysitting, cleaning, music lessons.

I did a lot of self employed work whilst a full time employed and as you say you can deduct your expenses. It depends how much work you are going to be doing - it sounds tiny and a one off so I doubt you can claim much of the home expenses other than the proportion based on the amount of use on that job - eg I just had an invoice from a self employed PA person and she has charged us for the paper, envelopes, stamps she used on the job and included expenses (plus her time).

For phone calls if there are 2 then I would just claim the actual cost of that call. if instead it is going to be 90% of the use of that line over 6 months(hich I doubt) you could claim a lot more.

Do as others advise above check though what "side job" means. It may be against your company's ethics' policy for the chairman to give a side job to an employee or it could be perfectly fine - hiring you to be the performer at his children's party when you normally work on the production line in the factory. Also check your employment contract as lots of them say you may not take any other work even self employed from anyone without employer permission .

Flower
You are correct but did not read the OP

her employment and self employment would be for the same manager, doing the same thing

she is being stitched by her boss to avoid ERS NI and pension rights

Where does it say she is doing the same thing though? She might be doing totally different work for the chairman personally out of working hours. Might be employed on reception and he needs someone to type the Parish Minutes in their spare time or whatever.

he needs someone to type the Parish Minutes in their spare time or whatever
Ha Ha
www.slcc.co.uk/jobs

It does sound as if this arrangement suits him and his tax /NI purposes and you ought to ask for the payment to be above board and through his company accounts rather than a hand out paid perhaps from his own private bank account. If that's the case.