Today I attended my first day of a super boosted business course hosted by a fabulous woman Fiona Carmody at Business In Mind www.businessinmind.ie

I remember the tedious research on the legal structures of a business, registering for tax, first year of taxation and the worst thing (!) preliminary tax. And today Fiona concisely outlined all anyone could know about setting up a business as a sole trader.

What is a Sole Trader?
It is set up by small businesses, such as Wedding Photographers in Ireland.
There is only one person in charge with an ability to employ people.
You are not obliged to register for VAT unless your income exceeds €37.5k a year on services and €75k on goods.
To notify Revenue that you are self employed you have to file a TR1 form both online or physically.





What is your first step?
Check if a business name you chose is available by logging into your account on cro. (www.core.cro.ie)
Check if your domain name is available
Make sure your business name is not patented
Register your business name with Companies Registration Office (www.cro.ie)
(Only if you chose to trade under a name that is different to the one you have in your passport)
Do it online for €20 or in paper for €40
After filing online CRO will issue a letter to you where you will place your signature and send it off to them by post
After you receive your certificate of business name registration, file the TR1 form with Revenue

Tax Filing
Your filing deadline for taxation is the 31st of October every year*
This is a synopsis of your earnings
If you started your business in 2014, you will file tax return Form 11 by 31st of October 2015
(2014 period will end on the 31st of December 2014 eg. if you started in August 2014 the year will end on 31st of December 2014)
Then you will calculate your preliminary tax for the year of 2015 based on your earnings in 2014 and pay 90% of liability tax for 2015
On the 31st of October 2016 you will pay the rest 10% of that tax

Tips
Address problems with revenue in person in your local revenue office. In my case it would be in Navan as I am based in Dunshaughlin. Sometimes we make mistakes without realising it. Coming in and speaking to one of the officers may change the situation and prevent you from paying any penalties once it's a genuine mistake. Once your case is outside Navan in Collector General's Office, there is nothing to be done then.

If in the first year of business you have income coming in, don't set it aside. Re-invest it into your business by creating a website or buying gear or anything that will make your business grow even a little. This way you won't lose any money by paying taxes on that income.

Make sure you register for the online tax filing system (ros.ie and revenue.ie)


This is as simple as it gets guys :)

Once again, a big thank you to the source of this knowledge Fiona Carmody from Business In Mind (www.businessinmind.ie)








*15th of November if you are applying online through ROS and 31st of August if you want the revenue to assess your Financial Statements for you