I just looked there and found the following. As far as my limited Spanish and Google Translate can make out there is no mention of an upper age limit, merely that contributions end on the last month of self employment:
----
Nacimiento y Fin de la obligación de cotizar
El trabajador autónomo está obligado a cotizar desde el primer día del mes en que inicia su actividad.
La obligación subsiste mientras el trabajador desarrolla su actividad, incluso durante las situaciones de incapacidad temporal, riesgo durante el embarazo, riesgo durante la lactancia natural, periodos de descanso por maternidad ó paternidad. La obligación termina el último día del mes en que el trabajador finaliza su actividad por cuenta propia, siempre y cuando comunique su baja dentro de plazo. En caso contrario, sigue obligado a cotizar hasta el último día del mes de comunicación de la baja, salvo que se justifique el cese en la actividad.

Es importante, por tanto, que el trabajador autónomo no olvide comunicar a la Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social su cese en la actividad, dentro de los 6 días naturales siguientes a dicho cese.
---

This is a most interesting discussion, and as it may effect me in the future I have asked a Spanish based company the following question:-

Q. I am 65 and UK retired, do I still have to register as autonomo and pay the full autonomo charge(s) if I was to work for myself part time ? ?

A. You do have to register as autonomo for tax and social security, but generally you do not have to pay the full social security contribution. You just have to pay a reduced amount, which I believe is around €30 per month.

For those who are below the magic figure then registration as autonomo is an imperative, but it should be noted that.......
......a question mark often arises about legalising irregular, small scale or casual earnings. For example, fees for speaking at conferences, selling arts and crafts, selling on ebay, giving music lessons, earnings from tupperware parties and similar. At what point do such casual earnings trigger the need for autonomo registration? Unfortunately the rules are quite strict and the answer is that to legalise any earnings whatsoever, autonomo registration is required. However it may be possible to opt out of paying autonomo social security if earnings are sporadic and it is not a proper living
http://www.advoco.es/advice/26-auton...istration.html

Therefore the lady refered to originally by Jimenato may well be operating legally or on the margins of legality if it is sporadic and not a proper living. She would not be able to issue an invoice or receipt nor charge IVA

One of the over riding factors in the "to autonomo or not to autonomo" is based on...........
The only people who are exempt from paying social security are those that the law recognises as not employed nor self-employed, in the sense of regularly offering their services as a main occupation. These are people paid for some irregular, occasional activity or even one off events. An example might be an academic on a salary paid for occasional speaking engagements outside the university.

No one earning more than the Spanish minimum wage or Salario Minimo Interprofesional or "SMI" which is currently set at €641,50 a month can avoid paying social security............the key point is irregular : if you are demonstrably not an "occasional" autonomo (e.g. you open a shop or office or your service is permanently on offer) it will be hard or impossible to claim the exemption however low your income
http://www.advoco.es/hot-topics/43-g...system.html#A7

It should be noted that for those who do not speak/read Spanish that the Spanish Government website has an English option for most of its pages, such as at
http://www.empleo.gob.es/en/sec_trabajo/index.htm
and
http://www.empleo.gob.es/en/seg_soc/index.htm

sorry its rather long, but as others have indicated it is a quagmire without the language problems and for the lazy it is easy to just ignore it and it will go away (perhaps)
rgds

.

That is very good stuff Domino and it would appear that 'my friend' might well be OK.

It possibly also means that the many people we hear about who do the odd musical gig or do peoples gardens/painting/cleaning every so often or give the odd music lesson or mend the odd laptop (you get my drift) are also exempt from having to pay autonomo.

Amongst all the guff is the section regarding pensionistas who having paid in for 35 yrs dont have to pay autonomos.

Assuming you are a pensioner you get a pension and you also have health cover......... therefore you dont pay autonomos.

Your gestor is the only one who can clarify this and deal with this with your local seg.soc office.

Nowhere do I read anywhere much this type of info because in the good old days people retired so no need to work.

I wouldnt want to get between you and your friend....

I have spent some time researching this as it is something that is regularly thrown up on this forum and as I have said - I have a potential interest in it.
Despite what we hear, there are schemes that can assist people in starting up in business as well as the one for females returning after pregnancy. Its finding them, applying in the manner most conducive to getting the assistance.

Yes we are in the EU but it is still a foreign land where they have their own rules that are different to the ones we were brought up in. We have to accept that or go home.
But by researching and trying to do things within the rules will make more friends and few enemies - I for one don't want to be looked upon by my neighbours as a law breaker, treated the same way as many of the incomers from other parts of the EU are treated in the UK at the moment.

.

In "the good old days" the pensioner was the lowest of the low, the one who had to be subject to Means Testing to get any benefits. With miniscule pension increases compared with massive increases (to fuel profits for the shareholders) in utility costs pensioners are finding life very difficult indeed.

It used to be called a Retirement Pension, but the R word is more often than not dropped. but the individual doesn't have to Retire From Life.
If they want to breed pigeons then thats up to them, in the same way as having a little job to "keep the mind active" or doing work for yourself giving others the benefit of your experience.
This is what is keeping so many "elderly" more and more active into later life, giving them the time and a little bit of extra money to enjoy that life instead of living to work.

Just because someone has been able to get their act together, despite a lowly income, and move to Spain for that better life in retirement shouldnt mean they should be disbarred from working if they want to.

bearing in mind your occupation here it can cause a problem for you as you may be paying someone to do a musical gig or maintenance work where you cannot get a proper invoice to suit Spain's IVA laws and therefore wouldnt be able to get the IVA back. Not sure where it leaves you on the main part of the bill - perhaps you could enlighten me on that ?

.

Nobody said they should be barred from working.......dont be silly.

Pensioners can and do work but they dont pay autonomos.

One thing Brits. can very rarely avoid is having their children pay Inheritance Tax to HMRC. If you are British and your Father was also British then the chances are that your Estate is 'captured' for ever and a day by the swingeing 40% tax bill. However there are several methods of legitimately avoiding or mitigating this tax !

Only if the estate is over 325,000 GBP.

And double that if the assets first passed from one deceased spouse to the other.

You are referring to domicile here.

Yes, it can be very difficult to lose your English domicile but it isn't impossible. In my own personal case I am pretty confident that I could claim to have changed domicile but even then, as Chiclanagirl and Rafiki have pointed out, the starting point for UK IHT is very high compared to Spain and anyway, you can deduct any Spanish IHT paid from the UK IHT.

I just hope your post is not going to turn into an advert for "several methods of legitimately avoiding or mitigating this tax".

well I never paid a penny on my inheritance from my father, so I must have been reading the right things that day.

My goodness ! I can see that tax is a real issue and of course it always is.
But what so very many Brit. expats. overlook is the question of IHT.
At a swingeing 40% on everything over £650,000 ( for a married couple who have left their estates to each other ) this is the "big" one !

The number of adult children who have been utterly dismayed that their Ma & Pa had overlooked planning for this eventual tax is legion !

Comments welcome....

I cant recall how to add a signature but I have added my co-ords as an attachment.

Bestest, Kevin J

FAO Fred James !

My goodness you have obviously been reading "me" somewhere else online !