Briton teaching freelance - and the law in Poland

Am a Briton usually resident in London, am over in Poland for a bit of a career break and sightseeing and have recently been asked to teach some conversational English to some business people in a Polish city.

Firstly, it's a great surprise to me as I would have thought I need to have some fluency in Polish before teaching, and secondly the pay is peanuts to me (about £10 an hour for 3 to 4 hours per fortnight) if I take up the offer. The money doesn't excite me - it's an experience and I like meeting and helping people.

It would be a freelance/self-employed basis from what I understand for 3 to 6 months.

You can guess the next question! What's the legal position for me if I take them up on this offer? Do I need to register with a tax office - if so is that free or is there a fee? Do I have to pay any money to the Polish government even on such low earnings, ie tax or national insurance et al? Anybody who can give me an idea of what I would need to pay monthly or quarterly to the Polish authorities for being a self-employed or freelance teacher, please post and let me know.

What I'm actually driving at is this: would I be better off doing the teaching for free or just a couple of beers than charging per hour but then having to pay all the fees to the Polish government that may be due if I commence as a paid teacher?

Thanks in advance.

Tim

Yes


No


Yes


It depends on the basis on which you are employed - but tax is 19% and you should pay social insurance too.


You should remember that working for free or 'just a couple of beers' is taking work away from people who do it for a living and that agreeing to work for such a low rate allows employers to keep lesson fees low.

You'd be teaching English, not Polish. I've been teaching here for five years. Rule number one in my classroom is speak English. I don't permit students at any levels to speak Polish.

In 2012 you can earn 3091zl / 5 = £619 (without paying any tax)

Everyone can earn a certain amount each year without paying any Income Tax.
This is called your Personal Allowance. In 2011-12 the Personal Allowance is £7,475

:/

Fair enough, I see your point, so what should I charge? Suggested hourly rate, please, for a big city student receiving 1-1 tuition from someone with an English language qualification but not a TEFL qualification? Is the 50zl per hour I have been offered too high or too low?

Also, any idea what the social insurance fee is, and does it fluctuate if my pay goes up or down? Looks like I will be making £80 a month, approx. 19% of that will go in tax plus social insurance of ...? Any idea?


Well, I am amazed at that being possible in Poland, in the UK teachers of, for example, French or German, would be lost if they couldn't communicate grammar and syntax ideas in the student's native language of English.


Just £600 before you have to pay tax in Poland? ! My oh my!

Isn't the UK increasing it to about £10K from £7K this next tax year? Maybe I misheard on that.

That's what I was earning per hour and before tax when teaching English in London.

Your employer (or you) need to pay income tax and national insurance (ZUS).

You can get a ZUS number (called a NIP) by asking for a NIP7 form at the tax office, akthough this form is only if you are the employee. Self employed people need a different form, but I don't know which one.

You in order to get a NIP you will also need a zameladowanie, which you can get at the town hall. You will need some proof of address.

but our earnings are about £8000 per year


My English isn't brilliant but they say:

hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/personal-allow.htm

Yes, you're right, it is rising to £8105 for under 65s, not £10000

direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_200224

Anyone tell me this, please: what is the minimum I would have to pay per month if my Polish income is below 3019zl a year? Is it just the national insurance ZUS? Is that a minimum of 250 zl per month come rain or shine?

They're paying to learn English. My Hurra po polsku book is entirely in Polish. That's how we learn another language.

What city are you in? Rates vary depending on the city.

First, are you sure the prospective students want this to be on the books? Who's paying? The company or the individuals?

Back in the ancient past when I still did private lessons no one wanted anything official, it was all hand to hand and off the books (by the students' choice). Times change but I'm not sure if they've changed that much.

If the company is paying officially they should be able to tell you what you need (though the relevant people might not want to try to find out).

Also, if this is on the books you should tell them how much you want after taxes (and let them figure out what the pretax level is to achieve that). 50 zl per hour in hand is not that very high (it's what I was getting over ten years ago).

As for not knowing Polish, you're not teaching grammar, you're teaching conversation. Your students won't want (and won't appreciate) you trying to explain grammar which they've already had plenty of.

And unless you have the right training you'll screw it up. Hint: unless you have linguistics or TESL training most of what you think you know about 'grammar' is just plain wrong.

There's still plenty for you to teach them in terms of naturalness and style and register. Here you use your intuitions to figure out what they want to say and how to say that in a more natural way (and how to sound more or less formal depending on the occasion). Don't try to explain principles or general rules just specific examples.

That is where some training might be useful, as what you have said there shows you might be a bit lost on a practical level.

PM me and I can send you some ideas/material sources for 'conversation' lessons if you like. I was teaching English for many years.
Careful with the Polish, their grammar is fantastic.
Go with the good advice of Mafketis and do not try and explain grammar yet.

I will, thank you, that is very kind


They didn't say - I just assume they want a receipt and a NIP number on receipts etc. I don't understand why a student would want it off the books! Why is that - may I ask?

I prefer to do everything above board, I don't like to look over my shoulder, and also if I'm living in a country even for a short time I don't mind paying a fair sum to the government if I earn money under their roof, as it were - although I have to say that in the UK if you are earning peanuts they allow an exemption on the insurance if you ask them for the form. Here it seems they want 200 or 300 a month from the start and even more later - this stifles enterprise among those who want to be fully legitimate


Nearest big city is Wrocław - tell me what you think is a fair hourly rate - I am not here to upset any applecart or tread on toes. I am not TEFL qualified although I do have English Language qualifications but let's forget those as I didn't even bring the certificates with me and can't prove they exist to a student without popping back to the UK and digging them out of one of many boxes under many other boxes and in fact I'm not even sure if they're in those boxes or somewhere else :o)

I'm in Gdansk so I don't have personal knowledge of rates in Wroclaw, but on another forum for teachers I have read that 50 nett is good although that was for regular work in a school. Conversation classes may be slightly lower. I'd ask the school for 50 and see what they say.

Good luck!

I think it's fair to say you should knock this idea on the head sharpish.

To issue an invoice you need a NIP registered to a company of some sort, even if it's you as a self-employed person. To get the NIP you need a meldunek, which is a registered address in a property. To get the meldunek you need the owner's permission, and a visit to the government office responsible for that. You also need a company bank account for the firm and an account with Polish inland revenue (ZUS).

All of these things take time to establish; at least a month, even if you have someone on the ground who's done it all before.

Also, this non-taxable amount that has been quoted; you still have to pay the tax, you just claim it back at the end of the tax year.

The absolute cheapest ZUS system is to pay about 250zl a month as a flat fee. But you will still have to pay tax on your earnings, either each month or each quarter.at a base rate of 19%. So to end up with your 400 zl in hand for eight hours a month, you'll need to charge just over 700zl for those eight hours, or 90zl an hour. And that's ignoring any cost of an accountant to fill in the ZUS forms and monitor your tax.

That's certainly doable in one of the big cities, but not for someone new to the town, the country and the whole profession.

To avoid the paperwork (and to not have to pay me more). I don't know how it works now (I stopped doing that kind of lesson over 10 years ago).


You might want to rethink the whole Poland thing then, there's no way to live for any length of time here and not break some rules, probably a lot of them. Rules are everywhere and many are unworkable and/or clearly irrational so people don't follow them. If that really bothers you then you won't be happy here.

If I were you (which I'm not) I'd just suggest an informal arrangement that wouldn't require the ridiculous amount of paperwork and inconvenience that doing everything by the book entails. If you're shy just express regret that it's impractical to get the NIP zameldowanie et and see what they suggest...

Thanks but see below


I can't organize all that, so yes you're right and I am indeed going to have to knock it on the head for sure. Thanks for the info.

If I might ask, what English Language qualifications do you have?


This is all true except for the bit about a company bank account - you can use your personal one provided it is a Polish account. A month is about right if you include National Insurance (ZUS) registration.


It would make sense for the school to do it on an umowa o dzielo - and avoid all that.

No - not anymore. These days, you only have to prove your right to an address, which can be any address. No meldunek asked for or required, at least in the case of EU citizens.

(in practice, this means either the notarial act or a contract with the owner)


This is a matter of huge debate, it seems - but why would anyone bother with a private account when business accounts are cheap to operate anyway?

I'd say you should you should knock the idea on the head because you need to be an open minded, approachable person. From your chat about £10 an hour being "peanuts to me", I'd say you're just an arsehole

By "company account" I simply mean "account for the company", not "account specified as a corporate account". Of course you can use your private one, but you still need AN account in Poland, and without the paperwork mentioned, it will be rather hard to obtain.

I didn't know about the meldunek waiver though, although "right to an address" sounds equally suspect.

They're only interested in making sure that you have legal title to the address that you want to use for your registered office, the meldunek seems to be irrelevant these days.


Aha, I get you. :)

mBank are very good for people without documents - they only want a declaration that you live somewhere and your passport/ID card. For business accounts, all they want is the usual company data - address, company NIP (it's been abolished for private people), REGON, etc.