How To Do Tax As A Freelancer

Being responsible for doing your own taxes can be an overwhelming prospect when you’re a freelancer. Doing it for the first time fills a lot of people with dread. And those who don’t have a system in place dread it year in, year out! That’s why it’s wise to get as clued up on the process as you can, as early as you can. 

At TaxScouts, we’re all about simplifying the tax return process. We’ll do your tax return online, we’ll do it quickly and we’ll do it for just £113, all in. In fact, you’ll be so relieved that there’ll be no going back; never again will you pay an accountant above the odds or navigate HMRC’s online portal alone.

But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’re here to dish out advice – and who better to give freelancers advice than seasoned freelancers themselves? 

They’ve seen it all. They’ve experienced the hardships and they’ve come out the other side to tell the tale. Here are the top tax tips of two expert Twine freelancers to help you get started.

1. PenguinCreative – top 3 tips

• Do it as soon as possible. Don’t wait until the last minute 
• Pay your bill and earn interest on your tax payment
• If you keep on top of the paperwork, it’s really very simple. I spend a day at the end of each month to complete all tasks (expenses and income) to stay on top of it all

2. Mary Konstant – 8 pearls of wisdom

• Keep a good record of all your invoices and payments
• Keep receipts from materials and tools that you can claim back in your expenses
• Make sure you do your taxes early
• If in doubt call HMRC – they can be very helpful!
• If you’re part-time employed and self-employed, it can get it bit tricky because you’ll need to list both on your Self Assessment
• I didn’t know much about the financial and tax year so that was a bit of a surprise!
• You can use your home as a business expense – a portion of your rent and bills
• The Self Assessment process can be scary and difficult to grasp in the beginning and people will tell you to pay for an accountant, but I don’t think it’s necessary in the beginning and after a couple of times, you get the gist of it

So do you feel ready to take on the world of Self Assessment? With these top tips, you certainly should do. Getting prepped early is something that we wholeheartedly support at TaxScouts so we’d strongly advise that you take this advice! Hey, you may even consider utilising some of this lockdown free time and not leaving your tax return to the 11th hour? It will save you a lot of stress that you just don’t need in January. Seriously.

And when TaxScouts will do it for you at such a low cost, how could you say no? 

Sign up here and we can get started straight away.