Catching up on previous year's Class 2 contributions - NOT through PAYE?

Hi there, I have been registered as self employed and completing Self Assessment since 2020/2021, although I have only been making enough profit to pay any taxes since 2021/2022. While filling out my taxes for this past year of 2022/2023, I noticed that SA was saying I owed £0 Class 2 National insurance contributions, which didn't sound right at all. Looking back, I suddenly realized that my Class 2 contributions for the previous year were £0 as well, when I definitely should have been paying some. I looked into it and learned that this was apparently because I needed to "update my self-employment status with HMRC" and *tell* them I was self-employed (despite the fact that I set up as self-employed in 2020 and this is my third year completing Self Assessment... why??) Anyway, I updated my status and Self Assessment now correctly says that I owe ~£160 of Class 2 contributions for 2022-2023. But I am still in arrears for my Class 2 contributions for 2021-2022, and don't see any way to pay them. My tailored return added a bunch of questions about correcting underpaid tax (copied below), but *only* through PAYE; as far as I know, I don't have a PAYE code as I am solely self employed - I do not receive a regular paycheck from an employer from which PAYE tax could be deducted. Do I simply answer No to all these questions? How do I correct my underpaid Class 2 contributions from last year but NOT through PAYE? _________________________ **Underpaid tax included in PAYE coding (Page 1 of 2) ** Amount of underpaid tax for earlier years included in your tax code for 6 April 2022 to 5 April 2023 (from your PAYE Notice of Coding): £ 0.00 - Is this figure correct? **Underpaid tax included in PAYE coding (Page 2 of 2)** Our records show that your 2022 to 2023 PAYE Notice of Coding includes an adjustment for tax underpaid. Amount of estimated underpaid tax for 6 April 2022 to 5 April 2023 to be included in your PAYE tax code for 6 April 2023 to 5 April 2024 (from your PAYE Notice of Coding): £ 0.00 - Is this figure correct? **Correct Other Debts** Amount of outstanding debt included in your tax code for 2022-23. Please enter '0' if there is nothing shown or you did not have a PAYE code: ** If you have not paid enough tax ** If you are submitting by 30 December, owe tax for 6 April 2022 to 5 April 2023 and have a PAYE tax code, do you want us to try to collect the tax and Class 4 NICs due (if below £3,000) through your tax code for 6 April 2024 to 5 April 2025? If you are likely to owe tax for the current tax year (ended 5 April 2024) on income other than employed earnings/pensions e.g. savings or the High Income Child Benefit Charge, do you want us to use your 6 April 2023 to 5 April 2024 PAYE tax code to collect that tax during the year?

Hi,

Registering for self assessment is not the same as self employed and as no class 2 was showing, The orignal registration did not show this. For earlier years, you will now need to pay this direct.

Pay Class 2 National Insurance if you do not pay through Self Assessment

With regards to the questions on underpayments, we cannot answer those on the forum as personal information would need to be given in order to access your record. You may therefore want to contact our Income Tax team if you are still unable to answer these.

Income Tax: general enquiries

Thank you.

Hi there, Thank you for your reply, I will contact the Income Tax team regarding my past years' Class 2 payments. With regard to registering for self assessment not being the same as registering as self employed - yes, thankfully I know this *now*, but I was not aware of this at all when I first set up as self-employed as the information provided by gov.uk on this is extremely unclear. On this page (https://www.gov.uk/set-up-self-employed), titled "Set up as self-employed (a 'sole trader'): step by step", no mention is made of specifically filling out a different form to tell HMRC that you are self-employed; the final step is simply "Register for Tax": On this page (https://www.gov.uk/set-up-sole-trader) on how to set up as a sole trader, it says: "To set up as a sole trader, you need to tell HMRC that you pay tax through Self Assessment. You’ll need to file a tax return every year." Followed by a link to Self Assessment. "Your Responsibilities" on this page are listed solely as: - keep business records and records of expenses - send a Self Assessment tax return every year - pay Income Tax on your profits and Class 2 and Class 4 National Insurance [what I thought I was doing through Self Assessment] - and registering for VAT if your turnover is over £85,000. None of these information pages mention that there are any other steps involved in officially registering as self-employed besides registering for Self Assessment. Moreover, when one does register for Self Assessment (https://www.gov.uk/register-for-self-assessment/y), the very first question that it asks is "Why are you registering for Self-Assessment?", with the first option being **You're self-employed (for example, a sole trader)**. This is the option that I picked when registering for Self Assessment; foolishly, I thought that actively selecting a box titled "I am self-employed" in addition to filling in "Self-employment income and expenses" each year on my government-issued tax return meant that I had sufficiently informed the government that I was self employed... I am by no means the only person whom this has affected/who found this needlessly confusing; this news report from over *3 years ago* says that this "glitch" has potentially affected hundreds of thousands of self-employed people. (link removed by admin ) I would strongly urge gov.uk to revise their articles to stress that the extra step of filling out an extra form to inform HMRC of one's employment change is *required* in addition to registering for Self Assessment in order to be able to correctly pay one's required Class 2 NIC.