A mixed month of news for British freelancers

We here at the Reading accountant Sherwin Currid are happy to announce that the Government may soon be further cutting down on bureaucracy for the self employed. Within reason, you may no longer have to abide by health and safety regulations, as long as you are not in a dangerous industry.

Ministers will state which workers are likely to remain bound by the rules, but these are likely to include builders, agricultural labourers and stunt people. One pressure group insists that the ruling needs to be clarified, as some workers might see the risks in the profession as relative, and therefore not particularly dangerous.

Of course, companies that employ freelancer workers will still need to abide by health and safety rules. However, the new legislation is intended to prevent freelancers being held back by guidelines that are hard to follow when they could be pursuing their living. Certainly, people with little chance of causing injury to themselves or others frequently see the work as unnecessary.

However, here at Reading accountant Sherwin Currid, we also want to make you aware of a problematic change for freelancers this month. The self-assessment tax system will soon incorporate class 2 NI payments. While the current arrangement only requires a direct debit to be set up, paying the contributions with the tax form will involve more time on paperwork and less time earning. What is more, it will take longer to sort out your class two contributions in this manner, and in the interim, people might miss payments.

The Government is taking these measures, as it believes that too many people are qualifying for exemption from class 2 payments. Of course, the state will have to pay for our retirement somehow. Yet the overwhelming majority of freelancers pay by direct debit, which presumably reduces the cost of administration for the Government. Increasing the amount of paperwork to be filled out is likely to add costs to the tax system, and these will need to be lower than the revenue generated by getting more people to pay class two contributions.

If you want advice on how best to solve your tax or national insurance affairs, speak to us at the leading Reading accountant Sherwin Currid.

Editor’s Note: Sherwin Currid (http://www.readingaccountant.co.uk) are represented by the search engine advertising and digital marketing specialists Jumping Spider Media. Email: info@jumpingspidermedia.co.uk or call: +44 (0)20 3070 1959 / +34 952 783 637.