Book royalties - taxable income?

Hi
You will need to tell the tax man your earnings. You can do this on a self-assessment form.
Contact the tax people and ask them to send you one
I have found the tax people to be friendly and helpful. The tax office has access to everything and it is a mistake to believe they might not notice you. It is very likely to be true, but if you take the risk, you must also be prepared to take the consequences, if it's not.

Hi, Forgerd. The UK tax folk are extremely helpful. Don't hesitate to contact them.

ALWAYS declare your income, no matter how small!

I decided to pay quarterly wage tax when I started to bring in money over a decade ago, in order to save paying penalties at Christmas. One check I sent in was for the amount of 38 cents.

I kid you not.

I got a letter back, demanding to see my Schedule C (it's a form freelancers use to declare income). Since we use H&R Block to prepare our taxes every year, it was easy to copy it and send it in to prove that I wasn't making much money - but I'd be damned if I didn't send in what they were owed, even if it came to only 38 cents.

They never asked again.

Cross your T's, Dot your I's and pay your taxes. Nothing worse than being surprised by an audit or having to pay a huge penalty 'cause it'll come at the worst time possible.

In the UK, even if you earn under the tax threshold, you still have to declare self-employed income (there may be a low threshold below which you don't have to declare it at all but I don't know the details so it's a lot safer to check). You won't have to pay tax on it until the amount is above the threshold. However, as you have a full time job you'll already be above the threshold so you'd have to pay tax on any additional income. I think you can earn a certain amount of self-employed income before you have to pay tax on it (not certain so again it's best to check). I agree with Bufty's advice about contacting HMRC, telling them what you've earned and they will tell you if you have to complete a tax return form or not and if you have to pay any tax or not. And they can tell you how to do the form (you can do them online), pay any tax or whatever. If the amount's that small then you probably don't have to pay any tax on it but best to call them and check.

Note: just clicked on your link - as you're in a high tax band already, if there are any thresholds for additional income before you're liable to pay tax, they'll be lower for you than, say, someone on minimum wage who's only just hit the threshold in their main job. So definitely better to check.

Also note: you don't have to declare your self-employed income yet, most self employed people will report it at the end of the tax year, and there is a deadline for when you have to do this. But best to call HMRC now so that you get the info you need to do everything right.

Also, congrats on getting published

Just to clarify the uk tax rules . You need to declare all your income . The tax pople work out what, if anything, you pay . There is no options .

Don't forget to also send receipts for expenses, such as advertising, book cover design, editing etc. That's a deductible.

Of course, income is money earned, minus expenses. In the UK you don't need to send any receipts. You just need to keep them for seven years, just in case they ask you to bring them in.

I'm going to be naughty and say I get about $500-1000 in writing income per year which I don't bother to declare.

If it was something like $5000 I'd look at some special tax that might be going in your country - ie: I've heard of a provision that will split the income over 3 years due to it being lump sum, like an advance. So instead of $100K for one year, its $33K over three. There should be a local writer's society that can help with that.

The companies paying you the money are declaring they are doing it, so you need to declare receiving it.