I currently work on a PAYA zero hours contract with 2 agencies doing 1 – 2 days per week (sometimes). I aim to keep my earnings under the tax threshold so only pay NI. One bit of work is ending but I’ve been offered steady work until Christmas but on a paid by invoice basis, does this mean Umbrella (and therefore fees) or Limited Company (hassle)? Or is there anything else? Ta….

Brolly.

Or is there anything else?

No reason to do either – just invoice, fill out a self assessment form later down the line, pay whatever’s due. – which may be little or nothing if your earnings as a whole remain under or close to the threshold. If this extra work will all be over the threshold (ie all your current PAYE to date has used up all your allowance, then the tax bill on the extra work will feel comparatively sore, but as a percentage of all your earnings it’ll be very little really and compared to the costs, responsibilities and bother of setting up companies or whatever, half and hour of form filling and keeping a few bob aside is easy enough

There would only really be any merit in looking at Limited company stuff if the threshold you were under was the Higher Rate one – or rather because you expected to go a long way over it

You can invoice as a sole trader. No need for any complications (unless the employer insists on it). Its 5 mins to register online with hmrc. You can just invoice under your own name or make up a company name. If you do make up a company name then you should put something like “Bob Smith trading as Flashy Widgets” to make it clear you are just a sole trader

Thanks guys. That’ll make it actually worth doing…brill

You can just invoice under your own name or make up a company name

not strictly a ‘company name’, just a trade name – don’t go sticking ‘Ltd’ after it

with that in mind – with any sole-traders looking…. if you use a name other than your own for promotion purposes…. watch out for a change in banking practices coming up, At the moment anyone paying you by BACs only needs to use your sort/acc no’s – theres a field for a name but thats really only for user reference and the banks currently ignore it. It has lead to fraud so is going to get tightened up. Soon the name that person types needs to match the name of the account holder otherwise the payment will be stopped so if you trade as ‘The Pie Man’ but your bank account is ‘Sweeney Todd’ then you need to start making it clear on your invoices what payee name customers should be using