Hi all,
just a quick question i was looking into becoming a escort and i know through the agency i was going to join its cash in hand so do you pay your taxes etc? if so how much is it and how do you go about it? Im only going be working 2 shifts a week... All advice will help
Thanks

Thank you
I will look into that just worrying how it will effect my benefits

Hi,

From reading it seems those with families often still remain on benefits. Locally a family home is a minimum of ?1250 pcm to rent, so some people find their overheads are massive anyway and will still get some housing help or even working tax credits.

Just makes sure you pop 30% aside for tax and then you will pay less with tax deductibles.

The site entitledto will help you gauge what you will or will not get benefit wise initially.

Nice shiny tax year at the start of the month, so will make it easier for you.

Hi,

Google taxreliefforescorts it will help a little.

Then google for the link to register with HMRC before you start working. You can resister as an escort as they will not share the info and it allows you to claim for condoms etc. Or you can think of a random trade and not get tax relief on everything.

Then let the benefits agency/housing know when ever you earn anything, you will find at first you are working and only gaining ?20 a week due to the cap, but eventually you will get off them. Personally I would invent a self employed description for them as you never know if the information is passed on!

I can not pop links here, but googling will help, as will looking at the main site (a lot of info there) and using the search facility on the forum.

Also, remember that by the time you pay an agency and taxes you are often giving away half of your money (You need to pay National Insurance too), so consider going Independent.

H x

thank you all il look into that!
May just end up going independent and having it as spare money at this rate! 

Would be interesting to know if the agency you pay your cut to takes half and somehow you would need to mention it because if you are shown as charging 150 an hour you will have to explain why you only get 75.

You just put "agency commission" in your list of Outgoings when keeping your records. Not sure if it goes anywhere in your actual tax return form cos I have my accountant do that for me, but back in my newbie/agency days I recorded the commission in my general accounts spreadsheet.

OP: It's a good idea to keep records right from the start. If the tax man notices you are working but not paying taxes (and I hear they have a whole department dedicated to keeping an eye on prossies - it must be the bloody easiest way to catch tax evaders, since they have to advertise on all the easily-Googled sites along with the rest of us!), they will levy a tax bill on you based on some horrifying assumed income. For example, at ?120 per hour, you'll be lucky if they only assume you're working 4-5 hours a day, 5 days per week. They might assume you're working 8 hours per day! That means a COLOSSAL yearly income, and therefore a MASSIVE tax bill. Then the onus is entirely on you to prove them wrong; you'll have to supply all documents and accounting info and bank statements and income/expenditure records and your work diary and anything else you can possibly think of if you even want to hope to get the tax bill reduced.

It's therefore MUCH cheaper to just give the tax man an appropriate portion of your earnings. There's actually a relatively high threshold so if you only want to earn, say, a couple of hundred quid a week to put towards the bills or food shopping or birthday presents then there wouldn't be much tax to pay on that. No need to live in fear, looking over your shoulder constantly.

my tip would be to use card payments for small purchases, and electronic payments where possible rather than cash.

I bank everything and use my cards for everything too. Ages ago I had a Tax Bill queried and couldn't find the receipts to back up some of my expenses. The Inland Revenue were happy to accept the Debit Card entries on my Bank Statement instead of the actual receipts and it saved me a fortune.

Obviously I'm a lot more careful about keeping my receipts now but I like using my card and having the entry on my Bank Statement as a  back-up. Its helped me too when I've had one of those receipts printed on Thermal paper that fades to bloody nothing after three months in a file and is useless when it comes to doing your books!

R xx

its all so bloody confusing. I only work two shifts a week because of looking after my son and ive been sort of advised by the agency to declare nothing until a few weeks time when i can work out if i want to carry on the career or not....... its so confusing

Please read the main SAAFE site (http://www.saafe.info), particularly the articles on Paying Your Tax, the Law, and Agencies. Hover over "Information for Escorts" to view the full article list.

Are you aware that agencies are illegal operations? It is legal to work as an escort - accepting money for sexual services - but it is not legal to benefit financially from someone else's escorting. Agency owners are pimps, basically, and pimping is a crime.

Your agent is, therefore, a criminal who is probably committing serious tax evasion. I'm sure they're a very nice person and all that, but do bear in mind that if you're going to take the advice of a criminal pimp over that of independent workers who aren't making a penny off you, then you may not be entirely rewarded with the result.

At the end of the day, however, your life decisions are your life decisions. If you worked for two shifts per week over two weeks, you would almost certainly not earn enough to pass the tax threshold for the month, so you wouldn't have to pay any taxes. But if you don't declare that income and someone spitefully dobs you in to HMRC, you could get a bill based on their assumption that you earned ?1000 per day since you started working.

Keep records, declare your income, submit a tax return. Or cross your fingers and worry all day. It's really up to you.