Changes to national insurance for freelancers of all types

It was Jeremy Hunt’s turn in the spotlight on Tuesday 22 November 2023. As Chancellor he was making an autumn statement about upcoming changes, including to some taxes. The most significant change is to national insurance contributions, which are a kind of tax for working people.

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Posted on 24 November 2023

New help sheets for freelancers – agreeing work and getting paid

Anyone who’s been on one of my courses will know that I have collected together a dozen ‘help sheets’ on different topics that are useful for freelancers.

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Posted on 03 November 2023

Start planning now for your next tax bill

There are two stages to paying income tax when you’re a sole trader: In between these you will receive a tax bill from HMRC. You can submit your self-assessment tax return as soon as a tax year finishes on 5th April.

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Posted on 31 August 2023

Introducing a new ‘use of home’ calculator for Sole Traders

I’ve had a couple of emails at the tail end of August, asking about how certain expenses are calculated when sole traders are doing their self-assessment tax return. One area that always causes confusion is the ‘use of home’. People usually know that something is offset-able for heating and lighting, but how is this calculated?

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Posted on 31 August 2023

Don’t be scared of numbers

Did you know that 17th May is National Numeracy Day? Me neither, but it gives me the chance to point out that there are plenty of resources out there to help people who might be a little scared of numbers. One charity doing good in this area is National Numeracy, a driving force behind National

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Posted on 11 May 2023

Putting the AI into TrAIning

I suspect everyone poo-poos new tech as a threat to their job until they can see that it really is a moving a big tank onto their lawn. I had a sudden ‘get off my land’ moment just a few days ago.

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Posted on 11 May 2023

Happy new tax year to all freelancers!

Income tax years in the UK run (bizarrely) from 6th April to 5th April. And the rules change every year. Sometimes it’s a tweak and sometimes, following a general election, it can be a radical new direction. There can also be ‘interesting’ new directions when the Prime Minister is Liz Truss. That’s another story, so

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Posted on 05 April 2023

Get organised for the new tax year – especially if you’re two types of freelancer

I get a lot of questions from people on my Finance of Freelancers courses about what happens to tax if you have a mix of PAYE income and sole trader income. PAYE income and sole trader profits are both taxed using the income tax system, which is pretty straight forward. But PAYE income is usually taxed by

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Posted on 05 April 2023

Tax latest for freelancers

If you’re a freelancer it’s good to think like a business, and part of that is keeping an eye on how tax works. You can sometimes save a bit of money just by tweaking your behaviour across different tax years. Yesterday (17 November 2022) Chancellor Jeremy Hunt unveiled the latest plans to deal with the

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Posted on 18 November 2022

Of Tweets and Toots

What to do when you feel your social network no longer cuts the mustard? This is the question loads of people have asked themselves since Elon Musk took over Twitter. For many it seems the answer is Mastodon. I started my training business before social media existed, and usually claim that I only use them

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Posted on 07 November 2022