micro enterprise with one big customer

[SteveH]

Teaching English as a micro-enterprise prof liberale.  

It looks possible that next year I might be able to have have one big customer (a school) and just a couple of private individuals. .  It might be as much as 15hours for the school and just 2 or 3 private.

Does anyone know at what point the powers that be say that it's not a

proper enterprise and that I am employed (which would be problematic)

Thanks

[Chancer]

They wont inasfar as you are concerned, from your Micro-E déclarations they will have no idea how many customers you have, the only risk (not to you) is that the language school becomes investigated, many have, usually as a result of a denonciation from someone like yourself! In that case you would be treated as the victim so dont worry about it.

[EuroTrash]

It's not about how many clients you have, it's about your relationship with each client, specifically the level of supervision / independence that exists. You could have one big client but if you are contracted to deliver a service or product and you have complete discretion over how you organise or produce that deliverable then it is fine. You could have 20 clients and if one of them gives you exact instructions on what to do, where and when to do it, provides you with the tools you need, fixes the level of remuneration etc, then you should have an employment contract with that particular client.

But as Chancer says they will not know from your declarations, unless you declare the exact same amount of income every month which would be unlikely for a genuine self employed person and might attract attention.

The rules are really there to protect you not to penalise you. A genuinely self employed person plans their business so they can afford to lose one or two clients and still survive. An employee who loses their job is entitled to chomage. A person who works for one "client" but is self employed rather than on an employment contract, risks being left high and dry from one day to the next if that client drops them. That is what the rules are there to try and prevent.