In an increased effort on minimising tax evasion, HMRC is putting together a task-force to gain insight into the earnings of people working for services such as Uber, Deliveroo, Etsy, AirBnB - companies most likely used by people to supplement their income on an ad-hoc and freelance basis.
The 24 member strong team has a budget of £37 million to track down and enforce tax collection. From January next year around 40 percent of the UK workforce who may be working in such capacity will have their declared/undeclared earnings compared to the data HMRC will be getting directly from services like the aforementioned Uber/Deliveroo etc.
Any undeclared or under-declared earnings will result in a tax investigation being opened by HMRC on the individual.
Self-employed people will also be under the radar under HMRC's new plans.
At the moment there is no need to file a tax return if your income from any self-employment does not exceed £1,000 per year.
For those who are outside of this exemption it appears their tax affairs are to come under much more scrutiny from next year.
If you are looking to add some extra income but want to estimate the tax implications, you can use our side hustle pay calculator to estimate the amount you need to earn from your side-hustle.
You can also use our multiple income tax estimate to get an estimated tax bill for multiple income sources.