I’ve been training freelancers for so long now that I can remember being freelance under a previous Labour government!
So does a change of governing party make a difference to self-employed people? Well – yes, if my experience is anything to go by.
It’s been fun looking back over nearly 20 years and finding a blog post explaining Gordon Brown’s tax plans. It feels like a different universe.
READ MORE >Posted on 12 July 2024
I’ve written many times over the last decade about HMRC’s big Making Tax Digital project.
Over the next few years it will mean a radical change for many sole traders.
If you’re registered as self-employed for self-assessment, this means you!
Some sole traders will need to get their heads around this from April 2025, for reasons I explain below.
READ MORE >Posted on 16 February 2025
Any sole trader or company freelancer will know how important it is to get invoicing right. One missing code number, or the wrong format, and you might not get paid.
I even have a whole help sheet on late payments and how to avoid them >
A new government consultation is running until May on the next step in invoicing – e-invoicing.
READ MORE >Posted on 16 February 2025
If you’re signed up to my monthly newsletter you’ll know that I try to pick topical issues for freelancers, including links to useful blogs and sites.
I was going to blog about AI this month, putting a link in the December edition of the newsletter.
Instead I asked ChatGPT to write the newsletter for me!
You can see the result (with my critique) here >
Below is my original prompt to ChatGPT. It took me five minutes to write the prompt, and less than ten seconds for ChatGPT to write it.
Let me know what you think of the result.
And have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Write a monthly newsletter for December, in British English, with a similar style and format to this example:
The introduction should be friendly and personal, wishing people a Merry Christmas and successful and peaceful 2025. The introduction should be maximum 150 words. With each sentence as a separate paragraph.
There should be two further topic-related sections. The first of these sections should be a 150 word summary about recent developments in AI and what it means for the creative industries. Please reference these three articles and credit the authors:
https://www.writing-skills.com/what-if-your-employer-has-banned-chatgpt
https://www.techfinitive.com/features/chatgpt-is-going-to-change-the-world
The second section should be advertising two Setting up as a Sole Trader training courses, one on 27th January 2025 and the other on Tuesday 25th February 2025. Include a link to this booking page:
https://davidthomasmedia.com/training-courses/
Please suggest a copyright-free thumbnail image for each of the two sections.
Do not use the term ‘happy holidays’, as this is American English and I find it annoying.
NB: David Thomas Media Ltd is not responsible for the content of other sites nor any financial advice provided by them.
Posted on 19 December 2024
On the face of it Rachel Reeves’s first Budget (30 October 2024) focused on raising money from higher employer national insurance contributions, fiddling with Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax, and pissing off Jeremy Clarkson.
But just below the surface – in the accompanying Treasury documents – there are some interesting hints of things to come, including for sole trader digital record-keeping.
READ MORE >Posted on 02 November 2024
Last week I wrote a blog post outlining a few things which the new Labour goverment looked likely to change.
The one I missed was pension reform.
READ MORE >Posted on 17 July 2024
For nearly 20 years I’ve been helping people to understand how tax works as part of my Finance for Freelances workshops.
The income tax quiz and the tax bathtub graphic are always the highlights!
David’s famous income tax bathtub © 2024
This is not just for fun. If you understand the tax system you will be much less anxious about it.
And most people have never been told how their tax bill is calculated. They think it’s complicated, and it really isn’t.
READ MORE >Posted on 12 July 2024
The process of registering as a sole trader (i.e. becoming self-employed), is simple in theory.
Officially you’re setting up a type of one-person business. But there’s not much bureaucracy as you are a person and a business at the same time. There are no big legal issues to deal with.
Having said this, the registration pages have changed a little bit, which can be confusing in practice.
READ MORE >Posted on 04 June 2024
Everywhere I look these days someone is telling me to check my National Insurance record.
I’ve discovered why…
READ MORE >Posted on 20 May 2024
One of the smaller announcements by Jeremy Hunt in his budget announcement (6 March 2024) was that the VAT threshold is to be raised by £5,000.
It is £90,000 per year from 1st April 2024.
This refers to the threshold of 12-monthly turnover at which a business, including sole traders, must become VAT registered. If they don’t register at that point they attract a penalty charge.
Posted on 08 March 2024
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