A “friend” has receny been made redundant and they have had several enquiries already regarding work, the friend is hugely experienced in their field and competitors/people know this hence the call. I’ve said I’d ask some other “friends” (you lot) which way they think is best to go about it.
Is getting a simple utr number from the tax office and then billing the company with a simple headed notepaper the way to go? Just list the work provided as consultancy fees etc? The world of self employment really isn’t my field, but whenever we have lads providing direct labour to us we just pay them using their utr number. Thanks in advance.

I can tell you for £500 plus yer vat.

I’d get professional advice on whether being a sole trader or a ltd co is best for your freind’s sitauation

business to business he won’t be paying the vat. 😉

i was SE for about a year. if i did it again i’d go limited. get a decent accountant. i can recommend someone if r’qd. put money away for this year’s and next year’s tax ( they charge second year ‘in advance’, sort of ). beware IR35 if working for one client only. get a decent accountant.

oh, and price properly. i did, but was surprised to find a colleague charging customers a half or third of what i was charging, despite in many respects being much more capable, though with differing skill sets. imagine you’ll actually be doing billable work for a third of your time, then factor in holidays, pension and sick.

He should register with CIS telling them what kind of business he is (subbie/sole trader/limited co etc) and then bill as you say. He will get 20% tax deducted from payments which is fine if he is labour only. If he is supply and fix then splitting valuations can be a ball ache for both parties so he might be as well asking CIS for gross status.

If he’s a consultant, he might not need to register with CIS.

It’s not going to be in the construction industry. It’s basically engineering. Obviously will have 6 months of normal paye pay so far this year, plus state and company pension to take in to account. My friend is quite old but wants some extra spendo money, but not at the sake of a **** up tax bill come may next year.

In this situation you can’t afford bad free advice, so the best advice is to find a competent accountant or more, personal recommendations are really best and have a initial conversation with them and see which you like.

The ones who want you to sign on the line there and then and want to extract every £ from HMRC might not be the best.

That said, if working for a number of companies as a consultant then it sounds like LTD company is a fare shout on which way to proceed.

I would recommend Ltd company route, especially if he’s thinking of leaving the money alone for a while/not taking it all as salary.

http://www.contractoruk.com/ is your friend for research etc. and a useful forum.