2:35
Becoming self-employed as a DJ
On YouTube this video is called How to become self employed as a DJ,
What this lesson teaches
Two and a half minutes of administration that nobody else in this field bothers to explain.
The trigger
Stated plainly: as soon as you start to earn money, you are self-employed.
And the part people get wrong: this applies even if you have a full-time day job. A sideline DJing in the evenings is still a business, and it still has to be declared.
What to do
His instructions are for the UK and the specifics have changed - registration is now done online rather than by visiting an office - but the shape of it has not:
Register as self-employed with the tax authority. Take your national insurance number and your address. Say when you want to start. From that date you are self-employed.
Then keep your own books.
And a note on timing worth adding to his version: there is a deadline for registering after you start trading, and a penalty for missing it. Do it when you take the first booking, not when the first tax return is due.
What 'the books' means
His explanation, aimed at anybody - so any muppet can understand - and it is genuinely all you need to start:
Income - what you earned.
Outgoings - your expenses: records, equipment, fuel.
What you are left with.
He calls the first figure gross and the result net, which is the right idea with the words slightly loose: the gross is everything that came in, and the net is what remains once the expenses are taken off. It is the net that gets taxed.
Why this is worth doing properly
Two reasons he does not spell out, and they are both in your favour.
Expenses reduce the tax. Every record, every cable, every mile driven to a gig, insurance, PAT testing, the van - these come off the income before tax is calculated. A DJ who keeps no receipts pays tax on the whole fee, which is considerably more than they owe.
It makes everything else possible. Public liability insurance, venue paperwork, invoicing a hotel that will only pay a business, and eventually a vehicle or equipment bought as a business expense. None of that works from a shoebox of cash.
The honest scope
This lesson tells you the obligation exists and roughly what it involves. It is not tax advice, the rules differ everywhere, and the thresholds and deadlines change.
What it does do - and the reason it belongs in a DJ curriculum - is remove the excuse. Plenty of people in this trade take cash for a while without registering, and it is worth sorting out your own position early. It is not; it is theirs, and sorting it out at the start costs an afternoon.
Contents of the video
Alright folks, a lot of people have been emailing me and asking me how do I become a DJ. Right, first and foremost, you've got to love music. Secondly, just as important, you've got to have something to play it on. Mixer, turntables, CDJs, PC programs, that kind of thing. A lot of people, again, have been wanting to take it that one step further. They'd like to start earning some money from it. Now, yes, admittedly, you can contact agents, you can go to nightclubs, you can try and start to earn money. But as soon as you start to earn money, theoretically, you're going to be classed as being self-employed. Now then, even if you're in full-time employment during the day... And you want to do a bit of a side, you want to have a sideline of DJing in the night. You will still have to become self-employed. Now this is my bit here, I'm going to cover over the personal information, but this is sort of tax return form and what you basically need to do in the UK, you have to become self-employed. Now what you will have to do, you have to contact your local tax office, okay?
They can arrange a meeting, you can arrange a meeting with them. Go in, all you really need to take is your national insurance number and give them your address. Explain what you want to do, then they will post all relevant information to you and then theoretically from the date that you say you want to start becoming self-employed, you have become self-employed and then it's up to you then. To start maintaining your own books. Now then, we're not on about books that you read and you get from a library. The terminology books is of course accounts. Now accounts are relatively simple. If let's say you want to simplify them so any muppet can understand, what happens is you have income, Which is what you earn. You have outgoings, which is basically your expenses on records, on equipment, on fuel etc. And then you have what you're left with. So you have income, you have gross amount, which is what you end up with, let's say after a month, and then your net amount is what you've ended up with after that month once you've taken all of your expenses out of your gross income.
Alright, so basically like I've said, if you want to take that one step further, become self-employed, okay? Contact your local tax office. If you want any more information about this sort of thing and how to work books out and that sort of stuff, then give us a bell, alright? Thanks for watching, practice and enjoy.
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
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