Tax Return for Public Relations Specialist

What does a Public Relations specialist do?
Public Relations, or PR, essentially comes down to reputation. Businesses, celebrities, and other individuals in the public eye all want to be seen in the best light. So, whether they do something good that they want the world to know about, or limit any damage when they do something that badly affects their public image, it is the public relations specialist’s job to ensure they are always seen in the highest possible regard in any situation.

Good communication skills needed

All good public relations comes down to communication. A PR company, or a PR freelancer in your case, will need to manage every aspect of an individual’s or an organisation’s outward-facing communications.

How the public thinks

You’ll also need to understand how the public thinks so that you’ll have a good idea of how they’ll perceive your clients’ actions, whether those actions are good or bad. You’ll use this knowledge along with your great communication skills to control try to maintain a good public image for your clients.

Being a freelance public relations specialist is about who you know

Public relations, more than any other industry, is about not what you know, but who you know. Randomly sending a press release out into the wild, hoping that a newspaper, magazine, or any other publication will want to publish the story, rarely works. A good PR specialist knows who to send it to. That means you need to build up a list of contacts who are in the position to get your PR communications published.

Start slow – freelancing part-time

Since building up a list of contacts takes a lot of time and hard work, it’s best you don’t jump straight into the world of self-employment and immediately leave your job.
Like many beginner freelancers, you should consider continuing your full-time employment while working as a freelance public relations specialist in your spare time. This way you’ll be able to support yourself and/or your family with your full-time job while you build your business.

Accounting as a freelance public relations specialist

There are various benefits to freelancing as a PR specialist, from the freedom and flexibility to work with a variety of businesses, individuals, and celebrities to more take-home pay. But there is one downside – accounting. As a full-time employee, your tax is usually taken care of on your behalf in the form of PAYE.As a freelancer you’ll have to keep a range of financial records and then prepare and pay a Self-Assessment tax return a the end of each business year. Accountancy can be very confusing and can distract you from your PR work.

Getting tax and accountancy advice

With most accountants, you’ll pay them to do your year-end accounts, and then they’ll forget about you until the next year. But for your business to be run smoothly and successfully, you’ll need advice on tax and accountancy throughout the year, especially in the early days.

Citi Accounts is different

Citi Accounts provides an affordable and specialist accountancy service designed just for freelancers.
Throughout the year we’ll be on hand to give you any tax and accountancy advice you might need, including things like:

• Take-home pay
• Which VAT scheme to register for
• Expenses
• Tax allowances
• Choosing between sole trader and limited company
• Running your business in a tax-efficient way

We charge for our accountancy services in a clear and simple way, which means you’ll never receive an unexpected bill, and you can get in touch for advice whenever you want without the worry of being charged a fortune like you would from many other accountants.