It’s easier than ever to be self-employed in the UK

The number of self-employed individuals in the last year was recorded as 4.97 million in the UK, as reported by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), a continued rapid rise year-on-year.

The ONS also reported that the number of female entrepreneurs is steadily increasing with the number of women registering for self-employment soaring to 51,000.

The rise in self-employment in the UK is fantastic news for the UK economy, with access to freelancers and contractors still being highly attractive to all size of businesses, helping to drive productivity and innovation in the UK.

Some work still needs to be done by the UK Government around improving pensions, bringing in fairer parental rights for working mothers and fathers and a simplification of the UK Tax system, already highlighted recently by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Javid.

We have, however, seen innovation by government and HMRC with the Making Tax Digital initiative, a move to make the tax system digital for all over a number of phases, with the first phase already in effect for VAT registered businesses and self-employed individuals.

The digital tax system is designed to reduce errors in the reporting process and ensure all information that HMRC holds about you is correct, as well as of course helping to submit your tax returns on time and efficiently and reducing fines.

Some 1.2 million VAT-registered businesses in the UK were due to submit their first MTD VAT return over the summer, but this first step was not without some technical issues on HMRC’s side and in addition, it was reported that a large proportion of affected businesses did not manage to file their MTD VAT return on time.

MTD VAT submission support is here

At Southside Accountants, we have fully compliant MTD software to help our small business clients implement MTD for VAT and submit their VAT returns on time, using both Quickbooks and Xero in-house, making it easier to manage your books anytime, anywhere.

For a free initial consultation on your MTD for VAT obligations, call us today for a free initial consultation, we would be delighted to help.