My second visit to the National Insurance Institute

I needed to declare myself as self-employed and the most important item, according to all my friends and advisors, was to notify the NII about this change.

So I took a bus into town to visit the NII and declare that I was becoming self-employed from November 1^st. This time I was wiser and went on a day that they were open. My accountant helped me fill in the form and off I went. It was not painful! I had to wait in line around 15 minutes and then the clerk spoke to me for 2 minutes, checked the form and sent me on my way. She even gave me a form to send them if I changed the estimate of my income.

The big catch is how much to declare that you will earn so that the correct (or reasonably close estimate) amount of national insurance is paid? How am I supposed to know if I don’t have firm contracts yet? Hence the form. If you pay too little then interest will be charged on the delta.

I then phoned the unemployment office and informed them that from November 1^st I would no longer be unemployed. The head honcho told me what details to put in the fax and that was it.

So finally I ticked off all the bureaucratic items I had on my list and was ready to open shop.

One side effect of the need to go to car-unfriendly places is that I take a bus. I have now learned that Tel-Aviv has an ‘Oyster’ system where you place the card on a contact pad, and that you can fill it up on the bus, but can only make the original purchase at the major bus terminal. Also, you have all these interesting people sitting opposite and around you and walking in the street. It reminded me of when I was a teenager, sitting at the top of a double-decker bus going to or from school, looking out of the window and seeing how people walked, handled themselves, and generally interacted with their surroundings. I used to make up short biographies of these people. My excuse is that I was a budding actress at the time, but really I just find people fascinating.

Update: I just received a payment booklet in the post to pay for national insurance and health fund contributions. Together they make up 12.5% of my income…Ouch.