Tag: national insurance

Do I have to pay tax on my part time job?

Whether or not you pay tax on your part-time job depends on how much you earn, not on the number of hours you work. Everyone receives a certain amount of income in each tax year on which no tax has to be paid. This is called the Personal Allowance (£8,105 in 2012-2013). If your earnings from your part-time job are below this, then you do not have to pay tax on them. If your earnings are more than this, you will pay tax on the difference.

One advantage to having multiple part time jobs is National Insurance, each job has its own allowance which means you end up not paying any NI (and so could your employer). However, there is a risk of aggregation (treated as from one source) if the jobs are related.

Students often work during the holidays and then return to full time education and use form P50 to reclaim their tax withour waiting till the end of the tax year, here is a link to P50

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pdfs/p50.pdf

You don’t have to be a student to use P50 it can be used by anyone stopping work or retiring.

steve@bicknells.net

Ways to Save National Insurance

I have always thought that National Insurance (NI) is a strange tax compared to PAYE because:

  1. For normal employees it isn’t cumulative its based on their earnings in a month or week (although Driectors can opt for Cumulative)
  2. It only applies between the ages of 16 and retirement
  3. Its applied at different rates to the Self Employed and there are 4 classes of NI

But the thing that seems totally bizarre to me is that for each job you have you get new NI limits, so if you had a variety of part time jobs you might not pay any National Insurance because your earnings were below the threshold in them all.

This also applys if you are Director, you get a new cumulative limit with each employer.

The current main Class 1 rates are 12% for employees and 13.8% for employers

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/nic.htm

If you’re employed you pay Class 1 National Insurance contributions. The rates are:

  • if you earn more than £146 a week and up to £817 a week, you pay 12 per cent of the amount you earn between £146 and £817
  • if you earn more than £817 a week, you also pay 2 per cent of all your earnings over £817

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/moneytaxandbenefits/taxes/beginnersguidetotax/nationalinsurance/introductiontonationalinsurance/dg_190048

Apart from having multiple jobs or changing jobs here are a few ways that you can save NI:

  1. Salary Sacrifice http://stevejbicknell.com/2011/10/22/salary-sacrifice-could-save-45-8-in-tax-and-ni-how-does-it-work/
  2. Special NI Holiday Schemes http://stevejbicknell.com/2011/10/15/holiday-pay-without-any-national-insurance-to-pay/
  3. Regional Employer NI Holiday – save up to £50,000 http://stevejbicknell.com/2011/10/08/reduce-your-ni-bill-by-50000/
  4. Benefits in Kind – for example Gym membership or Assets placed at the employees disposal – Tax and Class 1A NI is payable but the employee doesn’t pay NI – basically any of th brown boxes on the P11D http://stevejbicknell.com/2011/11/07/tax-free-fitness/http://stevejbicknell.com/2012/04/14/directors-loan-vs-private-use-of-company-assets/

steve@bicknells.net

Holiday Pay without any National Insurance to pay

There is a special concession which ends on 30th October 2012 which allows holiday pay to be paid without the Employee or the Employer paying any National Insurance.

Its been used in the Construction Industry for years and orginally employees had physical cards and collected stamps, it much easier now with companies like B&CE doing all the work for you.

Check to see if your business sector qualifies

Click to access niFurtherInfo.pdf

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/paye/payroll/special-pay/holiday.htm#x4

steve@bicknells.net

Reduce your NI bill by £50,000

Yes £50,000, thats how much you could save in employers NI if your business qualifies for the regional employers NICs Holiday.

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?type=ONEOFFPAGE&&itemId=1085763708&&r.s=p&&r.pp=12&&r.l1=1073858808&&r.lc=en&&r.li=1085814941

Under this scheme, for a limited period and subject to meeting certain conditions, new businesses may qualify for a deduction of up to £5,000 from the employer NICs that would normally be due – for each of the first ten employees they take on.

The National Insurance contributions (NICs) holiday is available to new businesses that start up during the period from 22 June 2010 to 5 September 2013.

The types of business that may be able to apply for the holiday are:

  • a sole trader, company or partnership that begins to carry on a trade, profession or vocation
  • a property business or investment business
  • a new trading charity whether or not it is carrying out activities with a view to profit

Managed Service Companies do not qualify for the holiday.

If you have recently started a new business its well worth finding out if it will qualify.

steve@bicknells.net