Accountancy help re: freelancing for 3 months?

Hi,

I have always been a PAYE employee in the past and then took 3 years off raising my children. I am now looking to go back to work again and have been offered a 3 month contract working for a company. I will just be receiving a guaranteed salary of the same amount from the same company for 3 months.

Most likely I will just do this for the 3 months and then either I will be made a permanent offer (in which case I would probably become a PAYE employee with this company) or I might end up freelancing a bit longer but I do not see it lasting as a longterm thing as in my profession usually you're a full-time, permanent employee.

My question is what do I do for taxes and where do I start?? I've been googling for hours and am totally confused. I think I need to register for VAT and will invoice my new employer as a sole trader? Is that right? Do I have to register somewhere as self employed? I don't want to set up a company at all.

Then how do taxes work? As I understand it I will be paid in full from my employer and must then put aside the money for the VAT and other tax I will have to pay to Revenue at a later date. How do I know how much that is? I know there have been changes in the budget for the self employed but I have no clue how much tax I will owe as I know I won't get the usual PAYE tax credit I am used to. I am married with 2 kids if that's relevant and my husband works as a PAYE worker and will be earning the equivalent of about €8,000 more than me (if viewed as a yearly salary).

If I am working as self employed for 3 months how do I deal with tax credits anyway? Right now my husband has mine as I have not been working. Do we go as jointly assessed now and do I just take my credits back??

Finally in terms of what I can "expense" or write off against my tax (which I don't understand either honestly) I need to buy a laptop to use for my upcoming job. How can that be offset against the tax I will owe and what amount of it can be offset? Also what else is eligible? I will be working from home at times and at other times in the company's office.

I'm really sorry for all the questions that may sound idiotic to you but I just cannot make sense of it at all after hours of googling and looking at an insanely long form 11 that freaked me out - surely almost all of that won't apply to me?? Is there not a simpler form for filing? What business records will I need to keep? I will just be getting a salary and from this and I will be paying our childminder, bills etc. There will not be any "loss" as such as I am not a business really am I?

Obviously I need an accountant and will have to get one (any recommendations in Dublin city centre?) but I really want to first get my head around it all before I see one and I would value the opinions of anyone on here who might be able to help. Thanks so much x