Entrepreneur Extension - Self-Employed Since PSW - HELP

[arkamz]

Hi Everyone,

Would be great if someone could help and clear my confusion. I have a few questions. The guidance has no clue for my situation :/

I basically am self-employed since 16.09.2012. I was granted TIER 1 Entrepreneur on 8-01-2014.

Now, I have always been Self-Employed to date, carried on with my business activity and been well busy doing so. I demonstrated my investment on my initial leave, as already had the funds invested in to the business during the leave prior to going on to Entrepreneur, which was PSW.

I need to be applying for my extension in the next few days, and started studying the requirements and documents.


Now according to the requirements, being self-employed;
- Should have registered with the HMRC within 6 months of my grant of leave to remain (Entrepreneur).
- On a date no earlier then 3 months from date of application must have registered with HMRC as self-employed.

Now, the thing is that I have always been registered as self-employed and still am. I got VAT registered after I got the Entrepreneur leave to remain back in January 2014.

When I applied for the initial Entrepreneur Application I supplied an NI bill dated within 3 months of the application date. Since then I have not kept record of any NI Bill, however for some reason I moved my registered address last year, my accountant apparently had updated my address with HMRC and I was receiving all VAT related etc letters nut no NI Bill. I checked with HMRC, last month, confirmed and updated my address asked them for the NI bill and they said they can't issue one, so I cleared my outstanding asked for a receipt and they had it emailed over. To my surprise, and bad luck, the email receipt had the wrong NI Number, therefore to correct that I contacted them again, and to date it is in the process of being rectified and re-allocated to my NI Number, so till then I can't have a bill, etc or anything. (They made a mistake and allocated my payment to someone else's NI Number and now are taking ages to fix it, apparently gone to another department to be re-allocated - TAKING AGES :/)

Now the question is, going by the rule book, I either need an up-to-date NI Bill (which I don't have - even though I have paid the balance) or a direct debit in place for the contributions (which is not) to demonstrate that I am registered as self-employed.

Question 2 is; I was already registered as self-employed back in 2012, over a year before I applied for my Entrepreneur leave to remain. Do I still have to produce a "welcome letter" for my extension? Or first 2 NI bills - which I do have - still before my initial leave to remain as entrepreneur?

Okay, so a quick summary of my confusion and questons:

-Been self-employed since Sep'2012 when I was on a PSW.
-Applied for Entrepreneur in Dec 2013 was granted Leave to Remain as one in Jan'2014
-How do I go on about demonstrating I was, and still am self-employed? P.S ** Do not have up-to-date NI Bills, or any after the specified date - i.e after being granted leave to remain under entrepreneur.
-However been actively trading, running business, filing VATs since 2014 onwards, filing returns, turnover exceeding 850k etc.

Any other way I can demonstrate? or prove? any suggestions, comments, guidance would be highly appreciated.

[arkamz]

Got an update, maybe helpful for someone to understand the issue.

Now I chased up HMRC trying to establish why did I not get any NI Bills, found out, that for some reason, HMRC had set my correspondence address for NI, Self-Assessment etc as a different address then my normal/residential address. And that different address turns out to be a shop (an additional business of which I was a director, not anymore since over a year). Now don't know why HMRC had that address as correspondence, either a mistake on the accountant end, or something. Anyways, I got the address updated as I mentioned before. HMRC says they can't send no copy bills, and that the outstanding has been settled so no bill to send either. All they can do is send a statement confirming balance and payments, etc.

So where do I stand with this situation? As in to demonstrate that I was Self-Employed throughout the period and still am, without having the NI BILLS or DD's. Is there an alternative?

[arkamz]

Hi there guys,

Anyone out there to advise or help?

I have been self-employed before I got my Tier 1 Entrepreneur - Initial

As described and mentioned above, I don't have my NI bill's (due to reasons explained above) (I paid for my NI Bill in full settlement few days ago), so am I able to demonstrate in any other way to score points for and to establish I was self-employed within 6 months of specified date and still am just before applying.

Thanks

[yhasan]

Hi,
I am in the exact same situation as you are. If you have paid the balance they can send you the copy of that bill in the post. I have asked for a copy of the bill but if that doesn't arrive in time then I will have to print a copy of the bank statement where I made the payment from and get it stamped by the bank. In that case I can tick the second box as bank statement showing NI payment. Shouldn't make a difference as I paid full for the whole year rather than direct debit.

By the way, how did you get an email receipt? I asked for one and they send me a payment transaction receipt but it doesnt have enough information about my class 2 NI.

[arkamz]

Hi there,

Oh Okay, so you have missing NI Bills too? is that the case?

There should be an alternative to lost Ni Bills, as long as you are genuine and have alternative ways of proving, anyone can loose an original bill.

Your question about the email receipt, yes it was just the transaction receipt.

But coming back to the NI's, as I was already self-employed before hand, I believe they want to see continuity, so just need to establish continuity, don't have no start/specified/entry date :/ right?
Now, they clearly are asking for either; an NI BILL *ORIGINAL or a direct debit. HMRC confirmed they can't do copy bills, and can't issue any bills for future either, has to be done through self-assessment. Now the question arises? Do we show a statement from HMRC confirming there is no outstanding and NI Class 2 is up to date, plus as you said, a transaction copy of the payment in full would be sufficient. Do you reckon that would actually be sufficient and could act as an alternative to score points? HO can be unpredictable, but I mean in reality proof from HMRC should be enough to substitute for a NI Bill or DD.

Also bearing in mind, we need to demonstrate from 6 months from specified date, and within 3 months of our applying for extension.