Teenage summer job ‘self employed’

[NCwhattodo]

My dd 17 has just been offered a job working at a school holiday club,
the company that runs the clubs does so over many sites and have been running a long time so hopefully it will be a good experience for her.

I have been reading through all the paperwork and it says she will be self employed, ie she can chose the days she works and isn’t entitled to sick or holiday pay.
Then it asks for details of accountant if applicable.

So do we/she need to do anything regarding declaring her earnings to HMRC?
I’m clueless on the matter and don’t want to get it wrong.
she won’t be earning enough to pay tax I’m sure.

Will she earn over £1000? If not, doesn't matter. If yes, call HRMC.

There are very strict rules regarding being self-employed so make sure the company is following them and not trying to take advantage. Plenty of info on the gov.uk website.

I run a small self employed caring business.

She will most probably need to register her self employed status on the government’s website.

Also, check she doesn’t need to pay for or have her own public liability insurance if she’s is working with children or young adults and a dbs check, that all adds to the expense of things.

Its so hard trying to get a summer job these days, dd16 is looking and getting nowhere

That sounds like ‘false self employment’.

Yeah, dodgy.

Did they tell her it was a self employed job at the interview?

assuming she isn’t bothered about paid time off she should investigste her personal responsibility / risk on the tax side.

I'd be astonished if she passed the HMRC test for self employment.

Can she really turn up when she likes, do what she likes when there and charge what she likes?

More likely that it's disguised self employment to dodge NMW and statutory annual leave entitlement.

How much are they paying her?

So can she send a substitute of her choice to cover for her if she's sick? Does she get paid a flat fee or an hourly fee?

Sounds like tax evasion to me.

I’m not sure it’s even legal.

https://iwork.co.uk/question/can-i-be-forced-to-be-self-employed/

More info here.

If she’s self employed she works when she wants and pays herself her salary.

So unless she turns up when she wants and takes as much of the company’s takings as she wants without having to go through a third party she’s not self employed.

Theyre pulling a fast one. It’s disgusting taking advantage of young people.And if its looking after little
kids it’s even more dodgy.

Theya re avoiding paying tax and NI. Where else are they cutting corners?

Agree with everyone above. It sounds very unlikely to really be a self employed role and much more like 'disguised employment'.

Look up "IR35 Employment Tests" and you will see there's a lot more to it than an 'employer' declaring that someone is self-employed.

Being self employed would imply financial risk for your DD and a need for her to have her own liability insurance.

https://www.acas.org.uk/employment-status/self-employment

Here’s the link

I have been self employed and don’t think this setup meets the criteria. It sounds like the company is trying to get her to sign away any rights to things like guaranteed work (is she essentially signing up to a zero hours contract?), NMW, any benefits provisions, etc. I would look at it carefully before agreeing and also check whether being self-employed purely her at liability for anything that could go wrong. I worked in standard corporate environments but always had personal business insurance when self-employed.

That’s not quite true. A self employed accountant can’t just take the takings of the company she works for without asking a third party. She provides services to a company for a fee she sets in advance and does the work on her terms. If DD can provide her services at a her leisure at a rate she agrees, providing her own tools with little management and doesn’t attend the Christmas party, she might still be self employed.

But she probably factually isn’t.

But for a casual job she might not care very much and in which case she just needs to register for self assessment and submit a tax return if she earns more than £1,000.

Thanks for all the information I think I definitely need to look into this a bit more.

I don’t know if they told her it was self employed at the interview. She can’t remember.
She has been looking for a job for months and is so excited so I don’t think she took everything they were saying in!

It sounds almost like bank shifts, “these are the shifts we need covering which do you want to do?”
I checked and her contract states pay and it is nmw for her age.
They are paying for her to get a dbs and do a paediatric first aid course. They have also got her to complete online safeguarding training.

On the contract it asks for NI number and tax reference code followed by this

“This information is requested to confirm your self-employed status, thus enabling xxxxxx
xxxxx to make payments to you without deductions for Tax and National Insurance contributions”

Good grief, that's not even subtle.

They're paying for her training, dictating the terms, paying an hourly rate. Factually she's employed. You can't just choose to treat someone as "self employed" to dodge tax when factually it's an employment relationship.

I’ve taken on disguised employment roles before as it was beneficial for me to look the other way. It sounds like this might be the case for your daughter as, although she’ll miss out on accrued holiday pay, she will be paid for the work she does, she will start to build her cv and will have a reference for when she’s applying for future work.

Ah, so they're doing it to avoid paying her statutory minimum holiday pay as that's the main advantage to them.

Utterly disgusting on such a low hourly rate and what sounds like a temporary summer job too. It must be saving them hardly any money but yet they're prepared to blatantly break the law like this.

I know it's probably put a downer on the excitement of her first job but it might be an important lesson for her in how low some employers are prepared to stoop to exploit their workers.

Perhaps talk through with her what the best course of action is. Does she want to challenge it, put up and shut up, or even report them to HMRC for effectively breaking NMW regulations?

Yes, so if she’s to benefit from the experience she needs to find out whether she has any personal risk on the tax side. That is, above the threshold for paying tax, is it the ‘employer’ or her personal responsibility to pay PAYE if (as is likely) she is an employee for tax purposes.

I'd be concerned about the insurance aspect. If she's self employed she would need her own, especially dealing with kids.

It's just a dodgey way of them trying to get her classified as SE instead of her being a paye employee.

Yes, if she can't send someone else (unlikley due to DBS etc) then it suggests she isn't SE
This company are probably acting illegally
Unfortunately someone will probably take the "job"

She will need Public Liability and Possibly professional indemnity

And you don't need someones NI number to pay them if they are SE