Freelancing UK>Aus
Out of context: Reply #4
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- petercooper0
Once you've ended your contract with them and moved back to the UK, what you do is register with HMRC as self employed. This primarily involves paying Class 2 NICs of roughly £10 per month (but you can apply for an exemption to these if you earn under a certain amount), filling out a self assessment tax return each year, and then paying income tax and Class 4 NICs from the result of that tax return.
Then all you do is bill the Australian client with an invoice in your personal name and get them to pay you with something like PayPal, direct bank transfer, or any system of you choice (PayPal has a bad rap due to having hundreds of millions of customers but I've used it over 10 years for things like this with no problems). Then you make sure you put aside a quarter or so of what you receive so you can pay those tax bills later on.
One day, you'll get a self assessment tax return notification through the door, you register online, fill out some boxes that say how much you made, and it gives you a bill. You pay the bill and you're done for another year.