Callum

Hello. I am long-term self-employed, so pay self-employed National Insurance contributions for the whole year. But as I work in outdoor education and sports, my industry has a quiet spell over winter of mainly paperwork and planning for the next year. As a result, I always take some employed work during this period to fill my spare time (and pay the bills). During this time I pay PAYE tax and employed NI through my employers, and then eventually either reclaim my PAYE tax through my employer updating my tax code or during self-assessment. (I also now have a customer who has moved me in the past year from being a self-employed freelancer, to employed on effectively a zero-hour contract). The employed time period and income make up the minority of my financial year (though the change to a zero-hour contract may impact this going forward). However, the self-assessment system doesn't seem to offer a way of reclaiming NI contributions during the weeks I am paying for being both employed and self-employed at the same time. Am I meant to be paying contributions towards both classes during these times, or am I entitled to claim back any of this double payment? If I can reclaim some of this, which class of NI would I be able to claim for, and is there a specific system I should be using? Many thanks, Callum