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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

Freelance work on the side - No tax declared - please advise!

Georgia01
Posts:1
Joined:Sat Nov 26, 2016 9:45 pm
Freelance work on the side - No tax declared - please advise!

Postby Georgia01 » Sat Nov 26, 2016 11:08 pm

Hello
I work full time and pay tax/NI through my employer but have been earning a bit of extra money on and off by doing audio typing since 2011 (2014/15 no work was carried out) and to date have earned approx £5.5K My salary is £25K. I know I should have declared the tax in the first instance but I suppose I just kept pushing it to the back of my mind. If I did come clean, any idea (rough estimate) of how much I would have to pay back in tax/fines? I am already in a lot of financial difficulty so am fearful of getting in more debt and even more fearful of getting a criminal record.

Some advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

GlobalTaxAdviser
Posts:633
Joined:Fri Dec 05, 2014 1:18 am

Re: Freelance work on the side - No tax declared - please advise!

Postby GlobalTaxAdviser » Sun Nov 27, 2016 5:18 pm

Hi

Certainly I would file a tax return for the income you have earned until date for 2011/12 and 2012/13 and 2013/14.

There could be penalties for late tax return and surcharge for late payment.

Normally late tax return penalty filing per annum is £1600. Surcharges 5% ......... + interest.

Always better to declare than get found out.

Don't worry unlikely HMRC would commence criminal proceedings

Kind Regards

GTA

SteLacca
Posts:448
Joined:Fri Aug 07, 2015 2:17 pm

Re: Freelance work on the side - No tax declared - please advise!

Postby SteLacca » Tue Nov 29, 2016 11:54 am

To add, make a voluntary disclosure before HMRC come and ask. Penalties are directly linked to the nature of disclosure. A completely voluntary, unprompted disclosure risks penalties to a maximum of 15% of the tax due (and could be mitigated to 0%). If HMRC have to ask, the minimum penalty is 15%.

bd6759
Posts:4262
Joined:Sat Feb 01, 2014 3:26 pm

Re: Freelance work on the side - No tax declared - please advise!

Postby bd6759 » Wed Nov 30, 2016 1:14 am

Your tax return can't be late because you haven't been asked to complete one. So there are no late filing penalties.

The 0% and 15% penalties are for carelessly submitting an inaccurate return. These don't apply here either.

Your penalties will be for failure to notify (sch41 FA2008). These will fall into the range 20%-70% of the tax you have to pay. A full disclosure with ful co-operaion will see a 20% penalty.

You will also have to pay the tax and interest.


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