The Luas smart card machines are feeling a bit peculiar too. It seems that they don’t know about leap years, so they overcharged some people this morning when they tagged off. I heard on the radio that the machines have therefore been turned off for the day and smart card users can travel for free. I may just go wild and head all the way to the ends of the earth, otherwise known as Sandyford. I’m sure that would cure my giddiness in no time!

It’s nice that the shiny new, if rather black, Hosting 365 site is fully aware of the day that is in it though. It’s a bit confusing that register365.com is now the brand for all their standard shared hosting plans, but the clever logo change made me smile:

Finally, it’s Work Life Balance day today. Perhaps they picked today because we don’t normally have the luxury of this day, so if you can’t get a bit of “me time” today there is no hope! Separating life and work, and getting them in proportion, has been my biggest challenge since I started freelancing. When you are self-employed, you have far more flexibility and control over when and how you work than employees, but despite this, it can be extremely tricky to get the work life balance right. That balance is different for everyone, and this is something that I think I will always have to work on, since I have always tended to let work invade my life too much regardless of the job! However, I have been working from home for over a year now and have learned lots along the way. The crazy days of all work and no play are much rarer now. However much you love your work, make sure you don’t let life pass you by.

When I first looked into doing some freelance web development work, I rang Revenue to find out what the tax implications would be for a PAYE worker earning some self-employed income. It would be no big deal, I was told. I would just have to make a tax return each October, and pay the tax on my self-employed income. The lady I spoke with kept stating that Revenue were really only concerned with what my overall income was, rather than how I earned it. That made sense to me and all seemed right with the world.

However, Revenue does care about how you earn your money. If you have a normal PAYE job and earn some self employed income, you are treated much the same as a standard PAYE employee. However, once you leave the safer, more predictable world of PAYE employment behind, and fully commit to running your own business, you lose your PAYE tax credit. Single people in Ireland are currently entitled to a personal tax credit of 1760 euro, but PAYE workers get an additional credit of 1760 euro. This means that while a lowly paid PAYE worker earning 17,600 euro per annum gets off tax free, a sole trader with the same income (assuming no expenses) has to pay 1,760 tax.

It is not all bad news for sole traders. Unlike PAYE workers, they only have to pay tax once a year, and new businesses do not have to settle up until year 2. You can also claim some tax relief on business related expenses. However, these minor perks are not any justification for why PAYE workers are treated far more favourably than sole traders by the Irish tax system. I’m not arguing for tax breaks for the self-employed; merely for equal treatment. Given the increased time and effort sole traders must put into managing their tax affairs alone, surely that’s not too much to ask. Such an initiative would be of significant help to the many start-ups that struggle with cash flow problems. Last year’s budget made things more unfair by increasing the PAYE credit far more than the personal tax credit. With the tightening of belts this year and far bigger fish to fry, I doubt that the Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen, will remedy this in December. I’ll just be keeping my fingers crossed that it won’t get any worse.